Sonic Underground Remixed
by Drake-Gons
Summary: What do you do when everything you know is a lie? Well for starters, you wouldn't plan on tackling a military regime down with only your friends and so-called family that you've never known. That's why the Sonic Underground has more than just friends this time. AU from the Underground Universe, with SEGA canon leaking in.
1. Chapter 1

To say that the day before-not surprisingly, yesterday-wasn't the best ever could never give what he felt then justice. The day before then promised that both that day and yesterday wouldn't change his life completely. Of course, no story ever promised to _not_ change any character's life, whether it would be a social, physical, or psychological change was only specified within the context of whatever happened to be the medium the story was using. None of the stories he read were exactly his material: after all, there have been no attempts to deconstruct the foundations of his favourite platform series that he was nicknamed after, and he never even bothered to look at other genres because he preferred being simple. The word simple meant that nothing extraordinary was going to jump out and drag you to their world. Simple also meant bare-bones, the basic frame-work that any being-whether their genes originated from non-sapient animals to slightly sapient humans-would end up being built up from.

The day the Soundbreaker War began with anything _**BUT**_ the word 'simple'.

* * *

_Many images flowed into his sleepy mind, unable to keep up with each and every one of them. He knew though, that each one held an odd meaning in his heart. Many of the images were people he couldn't recognize, save for his best friend-who-happens-to-be-a-girl Amy Rose, who looked more childish than he ever remembered. He also noticed his young best friend-who-was-also-a-brother Tails, but the twin-tailed fox seemed to look up to him more on a pedestal then as an equally matched friend. He also recognized himself in the images-the calm and collected blue-spiked hedgehog, though without his necklace he had kept all of his life-but he felt the air of _loneliness _around the other him, even when the other-him was in the presence of company._

_The other-him slowly turned toward his own dream body (how could it not be, for he was seeing another version of himself standing right in front of his long snout?), and reached out his identical arm, hoping his other would do the same. The true hedgehog hesitated—what if it was some form of trap? Yet the dreamer saw that the hesitation hurt the other-him, even though he noticed that it was hard to read the other with the large white mask on him—and decided that it was worth it._

_As the dreamer's hand touched his others, more images filled his mind, unable to identify each before they faded into the black abyss._

_A giant orbital station with a moustache..._

_A red echidna knocking him out before taking the emeralds he had worked so hard for..._

_A mosaic featuring him against a god..._

_A guardian made of water, whose anger made him into a monstrous beast that flooded a city of innocents..._

_A black and red hedgehog, next to a giant bio-mechanical lizard..._

_Another orbital space station, though this time over fifty years of age..._

_A metal version of him, before it turned into a metal dragon..._

_Again the metallic him, save for this time the other him racing the being for a younger Amy..._

_A planet no bigger than an asteroid, yet contains its own biosphere..._

_An orange echidna being knocked aside by her own race..._

_A flying small dog, next to a burly monster hedgehog-wolf..._

_An odd tentacle alien with a curl on the head..._

_A few members of the Herd taking care of some chao..._

_People the dreamer cannot recognize, save for both the parents of the three kids in their laps..._

_...Uncle Chuck? With a blue, Flicky-like bird on his shoulder?_

_A big purple cat, asking the other to allow him to save his frog friend...who was inside a frog-like water beast..._

_Himself as a fabled star-being, flying in space..._

_The missing Queen of Mobius holding... himself?_

Sonic slowly opened his tired eyes as the remaining fragments of his dream faded from his mind. Light poured into his messy room, illuminating the mess more than it should have. The duvet that was originally on him was now floor-bound, having rolled off when he tossed around. The single bed mattress was scratched from his blue quills, the main reason the hedgehog never bothered to sleep on his back, even while he was suffering from a cold. The window from which the light shone was behind Sonic's head, the heat from the spring rays woke up the tired hedgehog faster, distorting his mind about his dream even more than he liked. What he could remember was stored into long-term, while everything else became mist as his mind started to reboot into a more logical state.

Sonic stretched his arms upwards as he yawned, before getting up to gain some energy for his stomach; navigating through the mess on his bedroom floor as he went onto automatic mode. While he went down the stairs of his Uncle's disguised operating base, Sonic had only one thought on his mind:

"_What was that all about?"  
_

* * *

He barely remembered what the dream was about, let alone the details, yet his two young school friends and his older, childhood friend had asked about the details of the odd night vision. They were around a small table that would have seated five normal sized humans, two large sapient animals, and ten small sapient animals. Both the table and the five chairs around the table were of white plastic. If hit correctly, the sun's rays would blind the four friends and pet right there and then; but on that afternoon the sun was constantly covered by dark clouds, threatening to rain sometime soon. Sonic sighed as he straightened himself in his seat; ready to crush they're hopeless curiosity.

A small, dark-green coloured dragon pet rested on his bulging belly, a remnant of Sonic's childhood that he could never bother to get rid of. Sonic himself was wearing a white hooded sweater, which had red trimming the ends for his large frame to lift through. His shoes were red with a white elastic stripe running through the middle, and golden buckles that went through the elastic, both of which pointed toward the outside of Sonic's feet. The most prized possession on the Blue, blunt quill hedgehog was-oddly, a guitar-shaped medallion on a red string wrapped around his neck. Sonic's peach muzzle was pulling a small frown, his eyelids threatening to shut out his jade-green eyes from his friends.

He turned his head to the right. On the right side of Sonic's body was the 12-year old twin-tailed genius, Miles Prower. The boy was a sunshine-yellow fox, who wore a simple oil-stained brown dress-shirt over his shaggy white belly fur. His half red, half white shoes were constantly kicked in a child-like fashion by the fox's yellow-furred legs. Miles' white muzzle stuck with a wide, almost dog-like pant-smile, waiting to soak up whatever information would pour out of his brother-bond's own. The twelve-year old sky blue eyes shone with the exact same eagerness that Sonic could feel radiating from the boy's skin.

The hedgehog had quickly darted his head to the left, where he saw the one of two girls around the table (if you counted the pet as a part of the small group). She was a beautiful light pink hedgehog, whose quills hung from the back of her head. She was wearing a light green vest top, which showed off her shoulders neatly. Her hips were adorned with a Red-orange skirt, which had complemented her still-changing figure. The hedgehog girl's red Go-go boots twisted along with her legs when she realized that Sonic was staring at her. The red hair-band that she constantly wore changed its own expression to what the hedgehog herself felt. When Sonic tore his eyes away from the girl's own body to her face, he had realized she had been slightly rosy from being checked out. The female's emerald eyes shone with both embarrassment and amusement, her own peach muzzle shyly smiling at the blue hedgehog next to her.

Sonic tore his gaze away from his pink friend, before sighing and looking toward towards the only member of the group that was not straddling his personal space. In fact, the orange-haired human's face had a look of smug amusement-waiting to see whatever word the blue hedgehog would spit out this time could be turned against the speaker. Unlike Sonic, the older boy was slightly anorexic, making the long dark-grey leather jacket and the bright orange undershirt look far too big for him. The orange-haired male had on a pair of light blue sunglasses, which were held in place by dark-brown frames, tinting the boy's own mud-like eyes to appear more or less dirty brown. The male furthest away changed his expression to a scowl, noticing (quite correctly) that the hedgehog was delaying the inevitable, and was telling Sonic to get on with it.

Sonic sighed for the second time, before saying "Look, I really don't remember much about the stupid dream. All I know was that there was another version of me, except he really looked more like the video game character you guys showed me all those years ago. Every other bit of the dream came and went before I could understand its meaning."

"There's got to be at least some thing you remember about it, Sonic." Miles had asked- wanting to gain a little more information from the hedgehog before his curiosity was crushed completely. "It's not like you to not remember anything specific about your dreams. Remember when you used to create those elaborate tales about the Queen and King of the Union of Mobius?" Sonic had been a master at weaving tales of the Soundbreaker family, particularly since his foster father was related to the lost King Skylocke. The only one who had encouraged the tales was his foster father, Uncle Chuck, who had been trying to recover from the loss of his brother and the family that was given to him.

All of the children around that table had been abandoned in some form or another by their own biological parents: Miles had assumed that his twin tail mutation was what scared his parents away from the young boy. The pink hedgehog had to fend for herself in elementary school because her parents could barely find a decent paying job in the city of Alagar. The orange haired boy had to raise his sister for most of his life because of his mother's death, causing his father to work nearly every day to avoid the grief that she left behind. Sonic was the only one at that table who never had a glimpse, much less a memory, of either one of his birth-parents. He was slightly jealous of this factor, as he only knew the foster parents that had taken him in as a baby, and did not want to remember what had happened to them when his fifth birthday had rolled around. While he was grateful that he had met Uncle Chuck before the incident, Sonic could never tell if the older hedgehog becoming his foster parent was due to likeness to the older man (The differences between the two, Sonic had noted, was that the man's quills were sharp and light blue due to age, while his own were dark blue and blunt due to disuse).

"Well... There was one thing I'd think might be interesting..." Sonic muttered aloud, capturing the attention of all four members at the table. "There was this one moment where I saw Uncle Chuck, with a strange Flicky-like bird over his shoulder. I'm guessing that could be Fluke the Messenger, but..." The Flicky in his dream was a bit larger than Fluke itself, yet it had the exact same colour of feathers as the messenger for the Resistance did in real life. Sonic really wasn't sure why that image had become the thing from the dream he latched onto, but he felt it was important for some-

"Huh, that's the thing you remember most from your dream, Nickolas? You really HAD not much to say about it." The orange-haired boy had said to Sonic, getting up from his seat to walk over to where the other three were sitting. His pants were a lighter shade of orange, held up by a sky blue belt that was tightly wrapped around his waist. His similarly coloured sneakers slid over the ground in rhythm, stressing every second step with a stomp-like thrust. "Never-the-less, I honestly thought that your dream would finally enlighten you to realize that you need to get your head out of the clouds. Guess I was wrong again." He cheerfully added, ruffling the Blue hedgehog's fur in a playful manner, yet Sonic could feel the forcefulness from the hand on his head that the boy was not happy with what he heard.

"Well, Mister Orgville Maurice Kintobor, one can't really get enough information from a dream that constantly blasted image after image of orbital space stations with moustaches, god-like water beings transforming into bigger versions of themselves, people that I have never seen before save for Tails-" he pointed to his fox friend, "And the lovely Amy Rose right beside me, here-" Sonic put his arm around the hedgehog girl, yet did not close the gap between them so that she would be comfortable enough to relax, "and yet could barely recognize them because they were acting so differently in the images of my dream." All four (including the dragon pet, which had fallen to the hard ground when Sonic had moved) stared at the blue hedgehog in disbelief, as if the hedgehog had then grown a second head right in front of him. Sonic looked at all of them before realizing that he was acting not like himself, just barely noticing that he felt more like himself than he ever had been. He had also noticed the details that he could not remember before had slipped out of his mouth perfectly, as if his sub-consciousness was trying to tell him something... Silence nested itself with the small group of friends, not really sure what to say after the bold statement that flew out of Sonic's own peach snout.

"...Well." Kintobor had finally said out of the blue, breaking the silence cast around the small group. "I guess we'll all just go home now, I just remembered that I've left Hope all alone at my place." He quickly left the group at the table, not wanting to stay if there was another bout of insanity from any one of them. Sonic had also got up as well, not bothering with an excuse as he left with the female pet dragon for home, suddenly feeling very exhausted for some odd reason.

Only the dragon noticed his medallion lightly glowing blue, a sign that change may happen to all five of them soon...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Bit by Bit

* * *

Day: June 24th, 2103

Time: 6:51 in the Morning

* * *

*Bang*

Last shot, reload. Then aim at the target.

*bang* *bang*...

I calmly rest my modern Schofield revolver on the table top, which separated me from the paper target. I grabbed the red protective headphones from my head as the world started to waver in my eyes. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed to eat. Yet my mind reminded me what I would look if I give into my horrible gluttony- A dreadful image of me inflating like a balloon, then popping like one as soon as my blue quilled friend back-flipped into me. The image alone was enough for me to freak out, yet I know I'm dangerously underweight...

Damn my anorexia at times. It sucks worse when you know what is gonna happen if you don't really take in a lot of nutrients.

You end up dying, no second chance. Zero extra life for starving yourself, just destination Decomposing central. Yah can't even cheat your slow, agonizing death with vitamins; just using vitamin supplements for food won't help yah growling stomach. I know this because I tried it, didn't really work out.

The worst part of my life isn't my anorexia, oh no. My problems came about when my old man left me in charge of my five year-old sister, Hope Kintobor. She was the last gift from my mother, who had died from an illness that strangely, didn't affect my then unborn sister. My lovely sister was born on October the 9th, 2088.

I was five at the time of her death, so obviously it affected me the most. It also affected our dad; too, as he started taking care of Hope the instant mother breathed her last. His attention was mostly on Hope for the next couple years, leading me to discover the good and the bad things of the world on my lonesome.

The day when I met that overweight idiot was the day that dad stopped being dad.

* * *

I was twelve when we met on the New Year of 2095, Hope was seven, and he was ten. The kid was extremely quiet when I and my sister first met him, barely ever spoke save for anything related to food. I had empty pockets and only one satisfied child with a full belly by the time the festival was over. Fortunately, it happened to be the overweight hedgehog that had followed me and my little sis to a small, rundown temple that older people had said was haunted. Yet, it felt like a perfect place for two kids and a sleepy child to stay in for a bit. Hope was asleep by the time me and the blue hedgehog had even found the place, and was comfortably on my back via piggy back. By the time I had placed Hope onto a comfortable part of the ground, the hedgehog that had been following the both of us had started to speak.

"T-t-t-hanks for spendin' some time with me..." he trailed off, as if he wasn't sure if it was a good time to say.

At that time, I wasn't the person who would sarcastically snap at any one, so I just ended up being truthful to him. "It's not a problem. Mind if I ask for your name?"

"...Nicky Sound..." Nicky quietly shut himself up. I attempted to pull my best glare out on him, which was really more of a pout due to my age. Luckily for me, the being my glare-pout was directed to was near the same age as me. "Nickolas S-Soundbreaker?!"

"SHHHUUUSSSHH!" I tried to keep him quiet, but it was all in vain as Hope woke up. She started to complain about how she wanted to go back to dad. I had no choice on staying with a crabby kid and another kid who wanted to know my name, so I quickly gathered my sister, dropped both my own and my sister's name to the hedgehog, and left.

I can't remember when or how we got back. Though it was really late, I reckon, because the lights weren't on in the house. I didn't put much thought into it that night because I was mostly half-asleep, and I thought that dad might have been asleep as well. I took both myself and Hope quickly to bed as soon as we got in.

Dad wasn't there when I got up, and never was there for the both of us after that.

* * *

I don't remember the many details of that night, yet I felt that they were important for something once... Nah. Anyway, that day was both the best day and the worst day of my life. Though while I had been watching myself through the first few years of my life, I was practically at normal weight for a kid back then. When dad left, I had to watch not only myself, but Hope as well. I would spend from then to now constantly giving up my own life for her to grow up beautifully. It kind-a also meant watching my weight so that it didn't go too far up or down, but after the fight with dad made me a bit... self-conscious about myself.

Three years after he left, he came back to the nearly run-down house I and Hope still called home. At that time, it would have looked liked it was always abandoned (which it was, as I had to take Hope to Charles' place as I had to work for my first job back then). A good layer of dust formed over the useless space-filling vases and ornaments. There was an armchair near the old oak front; the whole leather seat was a nice light brown shade. My fifteen year-old self was seated in the armchair, glaring at the man who came in through the door. He had on a blue vest on his body, his white dress shirt underneath. He also had on black dress pants, held up by a silver belt depicting an 'h' on its buckle- though due to the artistic design, looked more like- 'I-C'. My dad's aged face look exhausted lines that have increased over the years due to stress and grief. The grey-brown orbs were staring directly at me under the clear glasses that was hanging from his nose. My dad sighed, running a rugged hand through his greying-orange hair.

"Orgville..." His tired voice breached our silence, yet I was too upset at being abandoned to consider his tone. "Sorry, kid." He chuckled a bit, aggravating my anger more. "I haven't had the time to raise you and your sister properly, because-"

"Work's more important than the both of us, right?" I sharply sneered, starling my father a bit. "I mean, it's not like we're important enough to have a good role model and all." It wasn't my intention to say that, as my dad knew I didn't like the idea of role models. Either way, dad realized that there was something I could not tell him. I tried excusing myself from him, but he quickly spun me around to face him. I didn't notice that his stubble was growing a bit, a sign that he may have been neglecting himself.

Like I am right now, with my anorexia and all.

"Is there something happening at school?" he asked me, knowing that I had been bullied in school a few years back. People do believe that my dad may be a rat Aryan in a human disguise. Despite me and Hope telling some of the kids that this isn't true, I have been beaten up by kids who think that they have the right to take out their home life frustrations on someone who's considered 'different' cause hey, no one's going to care 'bout them, right?

I think I had gained my self-hatred of weight around that time. My dad had learned about it the first fainting attack at school two years back. When I was brought into the hospital, I was forced to regain the amount of weight I had lost from my developed anorexia. Oddly, I really don't remember why or how I gained the anorexia problem. Was it because of them making fun of my dad, whom I looked so much alike? Either way, I feel most of my problems could be redirected back toward the man who hid himself in his work.

"...Nothing's wrong." I said quietly, keeping my eye contact on my dad's grey-brown. I knew that my voice betrayed my words to him. He reached out, hoping to try and rebuild the strangled relationship between us-

"Hey daddy! You're home!" Hope came running through to the entryway to the house, breaking dad's concentration and concern for me. While I was glad Hope had the miraculous ability to come in at the right time, I kind of hoped that we could make up after we had the eventual second fight between us.

* * *

That was the last time I ever tried opening up to him. Hah, I had never thought that we would end up settling our relationship with each other.

I am Orgville Maurice Kintobor, sometimes just known as Ovi, trainee cop of the Station Square Police Department. My current age is eighteen years, and my only wish is to make sure my younger sister Hope Selene Kintobor grows up to become whoever she wanted to be. To make sure she gets to whatever she wants, I decided to get myself a part-time job (As the old man occasionally forgets that he DOES have kids, at times). I feel that since Mum had left her body, I have to uphold the responsibility of taking care of this family, even if it kills me to get over the hurdles of failures and half-successes with taking care of her.

I at least think mum would have tried to do that for her. I never really tell Hope this, but I think that sometimes, she looks astonishingly like Mum in every single way.

I hear my phone ringing (I think, I'm not really sure if I brought one in), and

Wait, why is my face on the floor?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Black Hole Sun

* * *

_June 24__th__, 2103_

_Captain's Log_

_... It's all thanks to Amy that I, Miles 'Tails' Prower, have to flipping write out my thoughts on this screen, though I honestly don't understand WHY people would want to write their own thoughts on the day down. To me it's not worth it. Anyway, both today and yesterday were a HUGE letdown for me._

_Sonic, my big ole best friend came by yesterday morning to tell me that he had this weird dream the other night and would like to talk about it to me. Naturally, I was far too tired to even think about the implications about what he had wanted to talk with me about, so I ended up suggesting that he should invite both Amy and Ovi over for lunch at the fast food diner, Crunchy Chuck's. Of course, the sarcasm flew right over his ears as he did just that. So I ended up spending most of after-lunch trying to get Sonic to spit out his "odd" dream to the rest of the table. What happened was not what I had expected, as the blue hedgehog acted... odd to Ovi's gesture._

_If one could believe me, Nickolas 'Sonic' Soundbreaker was not a very talkative person. In fact, whenever he did decide that talking was better then let anyone less do it for him, he was always quiet and had a sense that he wasn't all there in mind. The times when he did snark loudly were the times that Nickolas felt it would be better that person be hit with his legs. He also had a habit of fidgeting in one spot, as if he wanted to run (though he had mentioned to me once that it was a habit-he never really liked doing too much of exercise if he could). Instead of ignoring the comment altogether and brushing the rest of us off, Sonic had relaxed in his seat, put an arm around both me and Amy, and responded quite cheekily to Ovi's retort. All of us were stunned to silence, causing Ovi to retreat back to see his beloved sister as an excuse to leave. Sonic also left quickly, not even bothering with an excuse-unlike Ovi. Both Amy and I had decided that it was best to leave as well-just to comprehend what had happened._

_Today was a little different..._

* * *

The young fox kit sighed as he stretched his shoulder blades from their scrunched state. He looked at the old monitor that contained his thoughts as digitized words, not sure whether or not to keep them. He saved the program anyways, not really sure if he wanted to continue the sentence. His light blue eyes dulled in thought, not really sure whether or not to just go and fix up his robot helper.

Mostly indecisive on what to do, the fox had finally settled on just working on his robot, Tool. The robot was a quad legged robot-designed to look like a regular old dog. The main body plates on it were coloured in a golden yellow, a good chunk of the plates were left in sterling silver. The eyes were the most striking thing about it, black lens with red 'pupils' for eyes. It growled when it saw its creator walking away from the computer. Tails sighed at the robot's attempt at getting back to work on his writing, yet returned to the seat in front of the monitor. He opened the program containing the thoughts about yesterday. He paused at the last words he wrote before closing the program. Tails sighed one more time before working again on the writing.

* * *

_Today, I've been unable to decide on what, exactly, I should do. In fact, I'm not really sure if I want to continue with either my work or my writing._

_I'm not exactly sure if I should just walk out into the sunshine and enjoy the day, or if I should just go back to bed. It's infuriating because I feel that it's not my own thought or decision that is being made. I've never felt like ripping my own innards out to rid myself of this mind-itch (I really don't know what to call it)._

_Yet, as I keep telling myself that these thoughts were not my own- a small part of me keeps screaming that they ARE my own; I just wish to not accept them because they keep me from my own work. ARG it's happening again! jhjtkjhshjhfjghdgs\ysuhgfdsfhjkliurtyjhreartyilok, jmhgbfdscvbhmfdsaesrtryukijhngbfds_

_Sorry about that, I kind-a slammed and rolled my nose all over my keyboard. :P _

_... Anyway, I thought it would go away if I continued my work on Tool and Sonic's wonderful bi-plane machine, the Tornado. Instead, it kept eating at my brain every hour, an odd dizziness growing every antagonizing minute. Now, I'm having problems with even moving my own body, let alone controlling my own thought process._

_Is this how Sonic's feeling right now? Because I'm thinking about having a quick kip to _

_Or should I work on the Tornado ri_

_Oh gosh I really cannot_

* * *

Tails pulled his calloused claws away from the keyboard, causing the program to close instantly (luckily it auto-saved, though Tails had briefly wondered if having the nut-bar loose sentences left as is a good idea). Quickly pushing out of the black rolling chair-freaking out the robotic dog and making it fall to the floor of the small workshop-the young fox went from the light green walls of the computer room and onto the cream fuzzy carpet that's laid for the floor of the lounge.

The lounge was just as impressive as the computer room. The lounge only had two matching fabric sofas-which were fit for three regular-sized humans, two large Aryans, and five small Aryans. Two stereotypical cross-panel windows were around the sofa closest to Tails, illuminating the back and the armrest furthest from the mind-scattered fox. The walls were, unlike the office where Tails works on his inventions-not even painted, a faded shade of brown covering it.

Tails used the last bit of strength to jump over the curled armrest, before being consumed by the battle between control and insanity for his mind. Tails closed his now dull light-blue eyes, really sure that sleep would actually make it worse. Never-the-less, the genius in fox forme started to dream of things that he had never experienced, yet felt that he once had...

* * *

"_**Sonic! This Egg Carrier's gonna crash!" the yellow fox kit yelled over the violent windstorm of the once-airborne aircraft. His partner, an older dark blue hedgehog with green eyes and red high tops, looked to his brother-bond of a fox.**_

"_**Take Amy and go, Tails!" the hedgehog, Sonic, said over the roar of the displaced winds of the man-made hovercraft. The smell of destroyed metal, and alighted oil was scaring him more than he would like to admit to himself. Tails hadn't noticed the hedgehog change his mask of cockiness to a worried frown, just because he was too young to even realize that the hero he looked up to wasn't as invincible as he liked.**_

"_**But Sonic! I can fight as good as you!" Tails, despite his large intelligence and tinkering abilities, was still as much a child as anybody at the age of eight. Sonic smiled slightly to himself, before closing his eyes and grabbing his number one (and the only one that he allowed near him) fan, Amy Rose. Yet to the dreaming fox she looked very different. She only had a red hair-band over her triangle-shaped ears (yet Tails remembered that only Sonic had been the only one in his mind that had the triangular ears). Instead of the usual long-sleeved green sweater with the light blue jeans, Amy was wearing a red dress, trimmed with white on both the end and the top of the dress.**_

_**Sonic pushed the hedgehog girl into Tails' own arms, running off to where the egg-shaped man Tails could oddly not name right now-toward the nose of the carrier itself.**_

"_**There's no time! I'll take care of him-" Sonic stuck his thumb toward the direction where the man the yellow fox could not seem to identify went to. "You go on and make sure Amy and her little bird friend are safe and sound!" the hedgehog left before any form of protest slipped out of Amy and Tails' own mouths. The fox didn't even notice the light blue Flicky that Amy was holding on tightly in her hands, chirping loudly as more of the Egg Carrier exploded and fell faster from the stormy sky. **_

"_**...Come on, Tails." Amy said defeated, Tails straining to hear over the sound of failing machinery and broken pipes. Tails looked quickly toward where Sonic had left, then at Amy before letting out a sigh.**_

"_**...Let's get off this stupid contraption..." The two-tailed fox finally said to the young hedgehog girl in his arms, before twirling his large namesakes, pulling himself and Amy into the sky. They both flew away from the monstrous, tacky looking carrier, toward the safety of solid ground.**_

_**For Tails, he was running away from his chance of being Sonic's equal.**_

* * *

The headache was gone, yet the twelve-year old felt that he had accomplished nothing within the time that he slept. The fox-boy's twin tails twitched as Miles' irritation rose. His thoughts, while not as strong as before he decided to sleep, flowing weak incoherent ideals that weren't exactly his. Tails sighed while rubbing the bridge of his snout with his paws.

He was starting to like some of the decisions that his mind was making for him, and he was horribly freaked out by it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Everybody's Fool

* * *

_June 25__th__, 2103_

_2 days before the war_

* * *

Amy sighed as she stared at the ceiling of her parent's little shop. She was wearing her red headband with her mood-changing smiley (which she had nicknamed 'Moody'), a large green sweater that fell over the top of her blue jean-covered legs. Her hand rested on her chin as she leaned backwards on the four-legged blue cushioned stool, her weight only being supported by the large counter-display that took up most of the room of the small shop. The shop itself was only large enough to allow about a small group of people, either human or animayan, to fit inside. The walls were cream coloured, matching the white fuzzy carpeting of the floor before the front-and only-counter of the shop. One large countertop separated the main housing from the business room. An assortment of yummy edibles was laid out on fancy china plates, lighted by the built in bulbs that were within the counter- a small machine was built under the counter to keep the sweet treats moist and fluffy enough for costumers to eat when they bought it.

Yet there wasn't anyone interested in the small treats for fear it would make them lose their perfect thin image. In reality, the constant 'fat scare' that had escalated in the 2010s wasn't making her life any easier. In fact, if there hadn't been any type of freak-out over body mass, Amy and her family would still be in the horrible financial situation they were in right now. Both her parents had to work in Alagar, a city which had jobs offering better wages for the family, forcing the pink hedgehog to constantly be on her lonesome in a small bakery. The hedgehog girl could only describe her after-school life, aside of the getting together with her male companions and the constant boring homework she had to do, as utterly uneventful. Both of her parents were barely ever around anymore, due to the financial difficulties that the Military Government of Sypress launched on old Regime supporters fifteen years ago.

Amy was constantly curious about her parent's involvement with the Sypress Revolution and why Lord Sypress thought it was a good idea to overthrow the last Soundbreaker King, Augress the Greedy. Yet whenever she'd ask either her father, who had been a close friend to one of the Lords of Skylocke, she would get a look that said, "Now's not the time", and be left with as much as the history books would give her: barely anything. But as her mother had once said to the neighbours, Amy had a lot of stubbornness when her mind's set on a goal. The pink hedgehog had spent a whole month of trying to collect information about what had happened between the Sun strike Army and the guerrilla Sky-Corps; the latter being Lord Sypress' army, yet came up with only a little bit more information then what she had started off with.

The only information about the Civil War of Mobius that Amy could find was that Augress only had a daughter, Aleena, who had children out of wedlock with the then well-known Hero of Mobius: Stanley 'Skylocke' Soundbreaker. The article containing this information then went on to say that all five were killed in the mansion the royals used when they wanted to get away from politics, yet what made Amy suspicious was that this 'Skylocke' person had the exact same surname as Charles 'Chuck' Soundbreaker, and by extension Nickolas 'Sonic' Soundbreaker himself. However, when she attempted to show her findings to Sonic's foster father, Sonic was usually there at the exact time Charles would attempt to speak, causing the older hedgehog to set up an excuse as to why Amy was there talking to him before being ushered out of the front door in order to make the lie work.

Despite the constant interruptions, Amy was able to understand from their short meetings that yes, Charles was in fact the TRUE uncle of Sonic himself, and that if he ever knew about this before... "The Something" happened (which Amy had to guess was soon, because she had stated to Chuck that Sonic acted weird towards herself, Tails and Kintobor two days before today- and while the older hedgehog didn't jump with joy, his light green eyes seemed to glow with anticipation and amusement as he processed what the pink hedgehog had said), then the whole world was in peril of dying by Lord Sypress' rule. Charles had then told Amy that if the "Something" hadn't happened just yet, then they could chat about Skylocke some other time before shoving Amy out of the back door for the last time. For Amy, that meant it was the end of any sense of excitement that she had for her after-school activities. She had that last conversation with the older blue hedgehog just yesterday evening, and now she wished Sonic hadn't had that radical shift in personality that day (yet, she could feel her cheeks warm in embarrassment whenever Amy imagined Sonic's arm around her shoulders again, except this time a bit more intimately, which made Amy giggle as she day-dreamed), just so that she could talk to Uncle Chuck about Skylocke.

She sighed as the bell over the shop's front door opened, causing Amy to return to the reality that is the sweet shop, turning to find the very person she was imagining who had stepped into the neglected shop. He had once again his green-scaled, with yellow-green membrane and tuft of fur at the top of its head, quadruped, and grey-horned dragon nipping at his heels once again. Amy had started to wonder if Sonic brought the pink-eyed dragon everywhere when Sonic spoke-

"Kintobor's at the hospital...again." Sonic tiredly wheezed a few times before starting again. "They've only just allowed friends and co-workers to be able to see him... He's a bit upset since his dad popped by to see him..." the male hedgehog breathed in a few times more, making sure his lungs weren't all that starved before finishing "Hope and Tails are with him right now. We should probably go, too."

"...Alright." Amy nodded quickly, knowing Sonic wouldn't want to keep Kintobor waiting for too long. The pink hedgehog went towards the bakery kitchen door, which was on the right side of the entrance to grab and put on her white-striped, red go-go boots that she always wore. She leapt over the counter-display, and really not thinking about her inertia, tackle-glomped Sonic to the ground. Both wrestled with each other's joints before Amy lifted herself off of Sonic.

"Sorry!" Amy said to the hedgehog on the floor, as he was recovering from being absolutely winded after getting slammed by a flying pink hedgehog.

* * *

"Look here, you bucket of bolts! I'm fine right now!" Ovi yelled at the Velociraptor-like robot pushing him back into bed. It was an odd robot, designed for stealth instead of swift strike as the Layman would have you believe. Its outer shell was covered in dark colours, with silver 'claws' gleaming in the already too bright room. The steel tail was jutted away from the head to give the body balance. One large big toe claw pointed upwards as the robot leaned into the hospital bed, curling into the distinctive way the Velociraptor species would usually be depicted as set.

"Geez, Orgville! If yah keep tis' up, you're not gonna get yerself out of tis' hospitail!" the robotic velociraptor said sharply, his voice synthesiser crackling at hard syllables. The machine made a hard face as it registered what was choked out before opening its light silver neck to adjust the speaker in its chest.

"Katriss..." Ovi sternly said to the robot, "C-can you not do that in a HOSPITAL, of all places?!"

"SoRRy, ORgi. iTS jUSt THAt- Aha!" The velociraptor, Katriss, exclaimed, his voice more richer and calculating then before. "There we go, now I don't have to continue the conversation as Greg." He snickered in a baritone before continuing, "Like I said, you're going to be let out in two days tops. The Doc's are still confuzzled about how your pops visiting while asleep makes you better then when you were brought in this bland place." The hospital room only contained a curtain for isolation and a window, if one didn't count the high-tech bed Kintobor was laying on anymore.

"You know, we 'fleshies' call the place dreary," Ovi snarled at the robot, the latter's dark optics winced a bit at the anger behind it, "And what do you mean by my dad visiting when I'm not awake?" The orange-haired boy decided to glare at the window instead of the velociraptor-like robot. Kintobor was tired of his dad always helping him at his weakest, particularly with the whole weight issue he was having that started from... somewhere. For Ovi, it was especially jarring that his dad was doing... whatever he was doing to him when they both were barely speaking with each other. And even if they were speaking; whatever his old man was doing was a violation of both common sense and hospital rules, making Kintobor more concerned about his father's mental state than the boy would like to admit. Dad Kintobor was still the parental unit Orgville Maurice Kintobor called 'dad', after all.

The orange-haired boy tucked his head into his chest, just to hide the already-forming tears coming out of his eyes. Ovi was not ready to admit that most of his problems could have been solved just by telling dad that he was to _be there_. All of the words, all of the hurtful feelings behind each and every sentence wouldn't have mattered to someone who would have later talked to their parents about it. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as that type of family-the world would have been a too cheery place if it weren't for all of the people trying to harm one another in some shape or fashion. For Kintobor, it was an illusion created by the too-early shattering of reality to be possible.

"Aw Ovi... Don't worry too much about it. I'm sure you'll get your chance to talk to him soon." Katriss said to the lad, knowing full well that most of the boy's wallowing was due to not listening to anyone. Katriss was sure that, despite Ovi's protests about them not being friends, Nickolas and his two pals were the orange-haired boy's friends due to how each and every one of them were too much in their own world to realize it. Nickolas was too 'spaced-out' for the real world, Miles would rather create new gadgets for his robot then interact with people, and Amy's stubbornness really kept people away from her. Really, it was more of a calling of stubborn misfit's that can't accept reality then an actual friendship. Never-the-less, the velociraptor-like robot was glad that the young cop-in-training had some people near his age to understand what he was going through.

Speaking of which... there were a few people waiting just outside the hospital room. And Katriss thought that all six wanted the robot out, despite being Ovi's co-worker.

* * *

Katriss walked himself down to the entrance of the hospital. The walls in each hallway had more variety then the bleach-white of hospital room 108-the room which Ovi Kintobor was staying in. The walls were a much bright yellow, brighter than anything the robot had ever seen. Luckily, the entrance itself was coated in muted brown for the laminate floor, and a muted white for the walls, cooling the velociraptor's now working optics. But he wasn't expecting what-or whom- he saw sitting on one of the entrance's long, brown-cushioned benches in front of the large double-doors he came out from greatly. A dark-green hedgehog was sitting casually, similarly coloured fur carelessly mopped over his head ungracefully. The hedgehog had two hoop earrings in its left triangle-shaped ear, the exact side the robot-cop was seeing him from. Dark-brown eyes were, happily not looking at the entrance to the hospital wings itself. The hedgehog was wearing an orange-brown vest, dirt-covered from the life that its owner lived in. The brown-leathered fanny-pack looked like it was only containing the worn silver drumsticks that were peeking out of it, though Katriss knew there was other stuff carefully packed into there by the five-finger policy. Other than the black cuffs with silver spikes on his wrists the most striking thing about the dark-green hedgehog was the shoes, once right red with white-lined tips, were now a muted dark red with light grey tips.

"What are you doing here, scum?" Katriss said with more venom than he wished to pull off, not wishing to scare off the people who were waiting for news of their loved ones and themselves. The dark-green hedgehog shifted from the bench he was sitting on, turning towards the robotic voice. On the hedgehog's blue necklace, under its peach muzzle, was a sliver drum-set medallion that's illuminating green light on its peach stomach.

"Well now, if it isn't Katriss of the night-watch! Found female Peter yet?" the hedgehog asked mockingly, the voice oddly similar to Nickolas', only more cocky and full of himself. "Oh, that's right. You aren't a little bow-and-arrow girl trapped inside a male velociraptor-robot's body. How can I be so insensitive?" Katriss' glare was enough to shut the young hedgehog up. The once cocky smile was replaced with a contorted frown on his peach muzzle.

"I'll ask again; why are YOU here, Edward 'Manic' Clasher?" the velociraptor-robot-cop growled surprisingly, after slamming the fore-mentioned hedgehog into the murky hospital wall, startling a few people who were waiting to be treated. The robot had its two silver claws around Clasher's neck, pushing just enough on the windpipe in his neck to let the green hedgehog know that Katriss wanted answers.

"*Wheeze* is this how you pick up the girls at work?" Edward gasped quickly, knowing full well that the programming in Katriss was starting to take effect quickly, hoping that the robot would shut down when the three laws by Asimov would activate. But unknown to the male hedgehog, Katriss was not designed to contain the three laws as law; rather the velociraptor was designed with the ability to NOT FOLLOW THE LAWS if the situation called for it. Fortunately for the young Clasher, Katriss' anger fled when the robot realized that Manic wasn't doing anything before; just sitting near the entrance of the hospital itself, doing nothing but wait. The velociraptor let go of the green hedgehog's neck, backing away as Manic greedily gulped air to his starved lungs.

"Don't make me go ninja-raptor-police-robot on you, Edward. That's your only warning from me." Katriss said to the now downed hedgehog, making sure that Manic was paying attention. "Now tell me, why are you here?" the robot said one final time, causing the green hedgehog to squirm a bit.

"Alright, fine! I'll speak! I'm here to steal some easy money; plus some medical equipment for my pals and to say 'hi' to Big Kinti'!" Edward dejectedly said, knowing full well that Katriss knew what he was saying.

"Big Kinti" was the knick-name Edward had made up when he stole from both Orgville and Hope Kintobor a few months ago. Hope was upset for a bit, because what the green hedgehog had stolen was a beautiful (yet expensive) ruby necklace adorned with plastic marbles. Taking matters into his own hands, the older Kintobor set out to track the thief with the rest of the Mobian Police force, which had ended when the orange-haired boy found Edward's hiding location: a stereo-typical wear-house that was collapsing on itself due to age and disuse. After a quick tussle with the thieving bandit, Kintobor had ended up reclaiming the stolen processions from the dagger-wielding thief; as well as the thief's interest and new name glued to the back of his favourite jacket-much to his dismay.

"Well know. Now that you have spilled the beans upon yourself, I think you know what's going to happen." Despite being off-duty, Katriss had a clearance upon making arrests as a civilian due to being a robot: most of the rule-writers for the police guide had considered that the robots would have to be fully off-line in order to be considered "Off-Duty". Katriss' own programming and how the velociraptor was built had turned a few heads within the whole department due to the robot being able to SWITCH between 'friendly' and 'cop-aggressive' at a drop of a hat-much like an actual human. Of course, there was the whole "out-right ignoring the three laws" thing going on at that time he was recruited that caused his co-workers to be wary of the robot, but after showing the police that the velociraptor understood that civilians were not to be killed—as well as criminals-Katriss was considered an achievement in robotics. It helped a lot to Katriss that he could find loop-holes in the Police rule book for beings like himself.

The robot grabbed the hand-cuffs he had been keeping inside his leg-compartment, and was about to slug Edward to the floor when the velociraptor himself was being _ridden on_. Katriss strained to look behind him (as a raptor's neck was not meant to twist toward the back) to find Clasher himself, twirling the hand-cuffs that were originally in his silver claws on Edward's own hedgehog finger. The velociraptor-like robot, though trying to shake off the young thief, knew fighting the hedgehog was futile as the hedgehog knew his design-flaws like the back of his paws. The green hedgehog boy then proceeded to put the cuffs on Katriss' own wrists, which had then _clicked_ as the mechanism inside the cuffs locked to the velociraptor's wrist size. Neither Katriss nor Manic had noticed the wet-floor sign before the scuffle began, so it came for a happy surprise to Manic when he jumped off of the (now mad/jaded) robot. Katriss' clawed feet slipped and slid over the brown floor, before catching on the robot. Katriss then fell toward the cold floor, knocking the robot out with scrambled data flying in his black-and-red optics.

Edward had made a chance to escape toward where Ovi's room was, hoping to catch Kintobor off-guard along with his friends and sister-if they were there, of course.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Hero

* * *

June 25th, 2103

1 hour, 45 Minutes earlier...

Tails was sitting on a brown oak, blue cushioned chair outside of the hospital room 108-the room of which Orgville Maurice Kintobor was staying in. The young fox was massaging his sinuses and head tiredly, if only because the mess of unknown thoughts still weaved a confusing web in the fox-boy's brain. In the chair on the right side of the fox was a twelve-year old girl, her bright red-brown eyes nearly hidden by her dirty-blond bangs. Despite this, one could see a hint of light-brown freckles over her milky-white skin. The child wore blue jean-overalls, with two straps being held in place by golden locks. She was also wearing a brown shirt under her overalls, and a beautiful golden necklace adorned with a real ruby on it. Her shoes were dark-brown hiking boots, torn and worn out from being used constantly on her feet. The young girl was kicking her legs back and forth, itching to see if her big brother was alright.

Tails sighed for what was possibly the sixth time that afternoon; his eyes glanced towards the only being not actually waiting for the two friends. It was a teddy-bear like creature, looking like a really cartoony dragon than an actual pet. The main body of the cartoon-dragon thing was a bright red. Its arms, tail, wings, and stubby legs were all a lavender-like color and its horns were a bright red: the colours reminded Tails of a 2000's platform video game character called Spyro the Dragon. There was, oddly, a. orange-yellow ball floating over the teddy-dragon's four-spiked head, which had quickly killed Tails' thought of purple scales and yellow dragonflies. Never-the-less, the moment when Tails killed the thought was when the teddy-dragon turned its head around, revealing a set of black button-like eyes with a white frame, again reminding Tails of novelty stuff: this time circular googly-eyes, though the eyes on the ovular-shaped toy-animal were oval-shaped instead. Green antennae were on top of the ovular face, the ends curled over.

"Hey, Tails. It looks like the robot velociraptor ninja cop's still tackling Ovi onto the bed." The toy being squeaked loudly, not really sure if it wanted to relay information toward the two children behind him.

"Boomy, don't scare Hope like that." Tails said to the small being. _"Sometimes I wonder if it's a chao thing..."_ The young fox muttered to himself, knowing very well that he sounded awkward to both the chao and the human girl. He massaged his temples as the dirty-blond girl got up toward the door of the hospital room. The girl had pressed her right ear onto the doorframe, hoping to hear whatever was happening inside.

"I think I hear something happening, Miles..." the girl, Hope, had said after a few seconds listening to the scuffle inside. Almost instantly, Hope jumped back from the door and onto the brown floor, startling both Tails and the toy-like chao to spring into action. "Muurph!" Hope's own hands were covering her mouth, making Tails more worried about what was going on inside room 108.

"S-sorry Miles, Boomer. It's just t-that, Katris-ss i-is..." Since Hope couldn't really describe it, it was obvious to both chao and fox that it was just Katriss readjusting his voice synthesiser. Boomy had let out a breath that both fox and dragon-toy chao hadn't noticed Boomy had held in. Tails had lifted Hope off the ground and back into the similarly made chair next to where the fox had been sitting when two familiar voices rang in the hospital hallway—as well as one none of the three before room 108 could recognize.

"You've really got to stop by non-expensive stores more often." The sound of Sonic's voice, though quiet, still echoed his surprise and curiosity. "There may be lots of things that you wouldn't have thought would be up to your standards of living."

"T-that's not to say we don't think you need it, miss." Amy's had a sense of anticipation and excitement, which had betrayed her own words for herself. "I-in fact, I think that you look great in what you're wearing right now!" her voice then awkwardly giggled, which then fell to the noise of three pairs of feet walking together.

"I must say _ma chéries_, you do have exquisite tastes for a... Well, _commoner_." The person with Sonic and Amy finally spoke, having a bit of French pepper her speech. "Oh, _mon ami_, I didn't mean that in a harsh way. I've been meaning to see what is in style for the people below my social group. It gets _boring_ to not see the world beyond your... well, background." Neither Tails nor the recipients near whom it was, was sure if the apology was sincere. The Three rounded the corner before any sort of new conversation could start.

Between Amy and Sonic, yet just behind them enough not to be considered friendly was a purple hedgehog in a stunning lavish dress. It was a beautiful sky blue, with the lacing a much darker navy. Two yellow bows adorned the dress around the similarly coloured, yet darker corset. Both the bows and the corset had clips to keep the fabric in place. Embedded in those clips were brilliant-cut emeralds, each one were perfectly centered inside the clips so that they would not get in the way. Her arms were covered by long, silk-looking yellow gloves that were kept from rolling down the arms from where they were by a thin, yet strong string that was bowed tightly. Taking a quick gander at the legs would reveal that the dress was (appropriately) modest, going straight down to her ankles and covering the rest of her lower body. Light blue high heels were the only things that could be seen from the bottom of the dress. In the purple hedgehog's hands was the green dragon that followed Sonic everywhere, its chest heaving slowly to indicate sleep. Tails had barely noticed that the hedgehog had a silver medallion on a yellow string; though unlike Sonic's own, it was shaped to look like a piano.

"Oh my, such darlings that is your friends! Aren't you all such cute cherubs waiting for when you can enter!" her enthusiasm for the children died when all three of the waiting party gave a stone cold glare. "Ah, _petite_ youth; never give such a cute warning to _moi_, but if it makes _ami_'s a bit more comfortable, I'll stop." It wasn't so much as being considered children as it was the purple hedgehog throwing French words in every sentence that angered both Tails and Hope a bit too much. The dragon within the bureaucrats' arms was starting to wake up at that moment, causing whatever else the hedgehog would say to die on her lips.

"Gebah!" the dragon called out as it bounced out of the purple upper-class' arms, purposely whacking the medallion with its tail while doing so. The oddly shaped silver stared to glow a light purple that went unnoticed to the group. The last bit of metal chain chinked on the collar around its neck as its claws scrapped the brown floor. Losing balance for a few seconds, it righted its horned head before sticking its long, snake-like tongue as a dog's would.

"Allegro..." Sonic spoke softly, shaking his head as he knelt to the pet dragon's height. His tan hand rested on the light green fuzz, earning a cross between a growl and a purr as the dragon pet nuzzled the palm. The hedgehog sighed before getting up from his knee. Nickolas had looked at the purple female hedgehog that he and Amy had only just met. Staring for a few seconds into her sky blue eyes, the hedgehog in dark blue quills finally asked, "Name?"

"Huh? Oh, my name?" Sonic only nodded his head. "Elizabeth Windlmire. But please, call me 'Sonia'." Her hand extended toward the other hedgehog. Light green eyes trailed over the contours of Elizabeth's hand before grabbing the palm, slowly shaking the aristocrat's own. "I'm only here because my fiancé, Bartleby, had nearly injured his opponent at fencing practice two days ago. I've been seeing the guy since yesterday." The group perked up at the word 'fiancé'.

"Fee-what-say? Is that some sort of title or somethin'?" Boomy curiously asked, the ball above his head becoming a question mark. Hope picked the dragon-chao up and whispered something into the ear. Eyes had unrealistically widened as its emotion ball changed from a question mark to an exclamation point. The young girl had looked back toward Sonia, a look of disbelief at the information given. In fact, only Tails and Sonic hadn't really given any amount of effort to show they're confusion, as Miles Prower was too busy with his headache to notice and Nickolas had only shrugged nonchalantly.

"F-fiancé? Aren't you a bit too young for marriage?" Amy was the first to break the dome of silence around the group, her voice cutting through like knives against hard cheese. The pink hedgehog faltered as the others quickly turned their heads toward her, causing the younger hedgehog to be slightly embarrassed. However, her embarrassment changed to worry as she continued. "I m-mean, what I mean is-"Amy stopped before her stuttering got too out of hand, taking deep breaths to calm herself down.

Sonia had put two of her silk-wearing fingers on the younger hedgehogs own mouth, careful not to press too hard on the youngster's mouth. She removed them once she was sure that Amy was fully calm before answering "It's absolutely nothing to get worked over, _ma chérie_, it was planned well before I could have a say." Despite it being well hidden, Sonia could only shiver in disgust at what she just said. Something that she had never got over yet had hidden it from the rest of the world. "I had enough time to get to know Bartleby, anyways. It's required by law that both parties have to be the age of twenty before they're actually married off, so there's no rush." Only Sonic had seen the one-second plea of help in Elizabeth's now darkened blue eyes: a look that he had once given to his own foster parents before-

Room 108's door creaked open, crashing any opportunity of conversation between the six outside. The robot velociraptor-like creature walked around the group, stopping half way to tell them that Ovi was 'alright'. Hope, Tails and Amy were the first to go into the room, followed by Allegro slowly trudging behind. Sonic had only entered the doorframe before turning his head towards the aristocrat and saying, "Sorry."

The blue hedgehog had turned his head again, confusion littered over his face as he thought: "_Who the heck was she?_"

"_And why do I feel like I know her?_"

* * *

Up, Left, straight, then up the stairs again.

Edward could almost feel the power of the ruby necklace as he ran through the hallways of the hospital. He licked his lips as the thought of finally finding the jewel within would help out all of the orphans that the guild had to take care of.

The ruby constantly leaked pure, untapped Chaos.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: End of the World as We Know It (Yet I Feel Fine)

* * *

**A/N:****  
**I apologize for this chapter taking so long, as I had problems with a dying harddrive and what not. Unfortunately, Special Hope won't be updated as quickly as this as I have no chapter four ready to go (I have started it... though the file is on my phone.) so until I finish the next chapter for Special Hope, Remix is going to be updated more often from now on.

* * *

June 25th, 2103

_Room108—twenty minutes later..._

* * *

Sonia hated getting lost.

The young purple hedgehog also hated being in a sterile place called the hospital.

Yet wouldn't one know she just had to be lost in the one place she couldn't stand.

Elizabeth harshly sighed at her situation, making _another_ lap around the very room she was left at. The aristocrat had, at first, thought about letting herself into the hospital room and quickly ask where the heck was the ICU—but then Sonia had remembered that she told the group that her fiancé had only got in a lucky scratch; not much for one to worry about. Elizabeth had then wondered if she should call her fiancé—but she had then remembered that Bartleby was on a business trip with Eggman Enterprises (the name would cause a flash of heated anger to course through her veins—though Sonia never understood why), and wouldn't be back until two days later. Even calling her own foster mother was off the table; Wendella Windlmire was having an expensive party for her few (if only) friends at the manor.

A half-shriek, half-snarl of frustration was bitten before being released from her mouth. Manicured hands laced in yellow silk-like gloves grabbed strands of purple fur just above her eyes, attempting to tear off the well-cared-for strands forcefully. Emotional stress caused the aristocrat's knees to buckle, unable to fully support her frame in the state she was in. Sobs of anger and frustration were the only thing that came out of the livid and volatile body for the next few seconds, before Sonia had finally calmed herself down.

Elizabeth couldn't believe how _easy_ it was for her to be in this situation. She also couldn't believe that the whole thing had managed to make her blow her top; and obviously _not_ in the most lady-like fashion in the world. Half-hearted chuckles escaped her throat as she compared the recent event to a spoilt child throwing a tantrum for a toy. _I should know better than this_. The aristocrat muttered to herself. Sonia had then decided that her emotional state was the more prominent problem than her air of regularity, so she ended up sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor of the hospital wing.

Using several calming techniques, Elizabeth hadn't heard the quick _thump_-_thump_ of feet running toward her until a hard pain shot up her back, along with the sound of someone grunting as they both fell kissing the disinfected floor.

"Well I NEVER!" Sonia was about to grab the being responsible for igniting her fury once again, but instead was pulled upwards forcibly by the aggressor. "Now wait a minute! Who do you think you are?" she kicked hard on the attacker's stomach to get out of the death-like grip the thing put on her. Sonia smirked a bit when she heard the being trying to catch his (Sonia noted a lower tone of voice from behind) breath, before freezing at the sudden man once behind her. The aristocrat had never thought she would have seen the olive green fur and quills in real life ever, nor did Sonia would even think that he had looked _handsome_ despite where he came from.

Yet a small part of her was grossed out at the idea of liking the hedgehog beyond brother-to-sister friendship—wait, what? _Where did that thought come from? I've never meet this bozo before now!_

Yet her inner turmoil was nothing compared to the green hedgehog thief that ran into her. Manic would have guessed that the purple hedgehog in front of her could be similar enough to him that it was terrifying. Yet, he had felt a strong sense of _home_ with her it did nothing to calm the young thief's fear. The sound of shouting from where he came reawakened his purpose for being in the hospital in the first place. _It's just not my week, isn't it?_ He sighed before grabbing the _oddly familiar_ woman back into his grip.

"I'm sorry to do this to a pretty lady like you, miss," Edward smoothly lied through his teeth inside Elizabeth's ear, "But you're gonna have to play as my get out of jail free card. I really don't like doing this to anyone, but I clearly have no choice for now." Manic gulped as the truth rolled off his tongue. The green thief turned kidnapper quickly shut his mouth as he dragged both his witness and himself into the only location that they both could hide in.

* * *

The door slammed open, causing the (only awake) occupants to turn towards the cause of the noise. Whatever they would have said to the interrupters had died on their lips. A green hedgehog had the aristocrat the occupants had met a while ago in his hands, ready to strike any of them at the first sign of aggression. Allegro was the first to react to the scene, jumping at the green hedgehog to release the aristocrat in his hands. The kidnapper only swatted the dragon-pet away, not bothered that he didn't even hear the dragon hit the wall. Sonic however, had picked up the pet before Allegro had attempted another attack at the other hedgehog.

Hope started to tremble once her eyes sighted the green hedgehog turned kidnapper. Boomy was about to attack when he found himself being pulled into Hope's embrace, squeezing the life out of the dragon-chao as it squeaked both protest and threats loud as a foghorn. Ovi had shot up from the bed, nearly getting himself out to tackle both hostage and the threat before being shoved by Tails and Amy. "Manic." He growled angrily.

"Big Kinti! I only wanted to say hi!" The kidnapper said, ignoring the enraged patient that was struggling to get out of the hold. "I'm sorry about the situation I've arrived in, but I just _had_ to run your stupid robot friend earlier." His smile was almost infectious enough to distil the mood within the room, if it weren't for Elizabeth being in a hostage situation. The kidnapper had then noticed that there were other people in the room as well, his eyes resting on the young dirty-blond holding her chao, her body trembling as she stared wide-eyed at the hedgehog. The green hedgehog half-dragged, half-strutted toward where Hope was, the girl too shocked to move. But before he could reach the young girl, both hedgehogs were brought to the floor by an upset blur of orange.

But before Ovi could say anything regarding Manic's presence, the glow of the medallions grew brighter than ever before. Too stunned to move, the occupants of the room closest to the three hedgehogs suddenly started to disappear. Tails and Allegro were the first to disappear, surprised more than scared, with Amy being the only one to notice that Hope wasn't disappearing like the rest of them. Hope and Boomy were left wondering what had just happened in those ten seconds.

* * *

Tired as if he ran around the world for ten hours, Nickolas could barely open his eyelids before allowing his body to return to dreamland. However a loud, incomprehensible sound filled his tired ears. _Stop bothering me..._ Sonic sleepily yelled in his mind, paw reaching for a good shield from the light above him.

"Sonic, your destiny awaits!" the voice said, more understanding now that his mind worked to a more awake state. Yet the world of Dreams was much more peaceful...

"Tell it to wait outside; I'm really not interested right now..." Sonic finally said, his voice trailing as he feel back to sleep.

"Your lack of interest is most disappointing, young hedgehog. But I believe that it cannot stand to wait for so long. As it would say, 'you're too slow'..." a strong green light engulfed the sleeping body of Nickolas Soundbreaker, lifting the blue hedgehog off of the furniture he was resting on.

A huge jolt of energy tore through his body, refreshing the hedgehog to full consciousness. Sonic threw the item that kept the light from his eyes, which without looking Sonic conformed as one of the soft bed pillows that Uncle Chuck owned.

"Good mo ~orning, Harrion City! Oh yah, I'm—Oof!" The levitation spell ended as soon as he was about to say 'up', causing the hedgehog to fall onto the couch he was once sleeping on quill-first. "Wait just a minute, who are YOU?" Sonic said as he pulled his quills out of the now- torn and useless sofa, struggling to look aggressive with threads of cloth caught in between his poorly sharpened spikes. "Though the question I SHOULD be asking is_ WHY AM I AT MY OWN HOUSE INSTEAD OF THE FREAKING HOSPITAL?!"_ Sonic's voice boomed to a near screech of rage, yet the newcomer within the room had cast another spell to silence the pitch and snarl to proper levels.

The figure stepped into the light, revealing a purple cloak held up by a green brooch. The figure was hunched over, leaning on the wooden cane under visible green hooves for support. The being then pulled back his hood to reveal an elderly male tapir face, light green along with his clinging strands. Navy blue, mischievous-looking eyes shone as they kindly glanced toward the now steaming hedgehog opposite him.

"All will be revealed in time, Son of Skylocke. But for now, I'll answer your first question. I am the Oracle of Delpheius, and you are not who you are told to have been."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Who Are You?

* * *

_Time Unknown_

_Uncle Chuck's House_

"The what-of-who? Sorry, never heard of you." Sonic could only shake his head at all this. First, his personality completely shifts for three seconds after having a dream that may have been inter-dimensional, next some guy that obviously both Hope and Ovi encountered previously shows up requesting for protection with the person they encountered before as a hostage, and now some prophet is doing some weird magic tricks in his Uncle's house after some sort of teleportation trick probably sent each and every one of his friends (and two not well known people) into the lands of who-knows-where and no-man's land. Yep, one contrivance after another has this week BEEN. And for Sonic, it felt like a bad comic book plot.

Yet before he could voice his aggression over his week, the Oracle's magic created a table and two chairs, of which were placed on the same sides as the Oracle and Sonic. The light-green tapir sat himself on the chair nearest to him, and conjured up a plate of chilli-dogs piled on top of one-another. The smell of his favourite food distracted him so much, that Nickolas instead dug into the pile of chilli-dogs. The blue hedgehog sighed blissfully as the first few were sloppily thrown into his esophagus, nearly choking on the fast food as he did so.

"I've haven't had these in a long time..." Sonic again sighed, not noticing the Oracle shake his head at the scene.

"Now that you have my attention, young hedgehog, I can tell you who you truly are..." The Oracle calmly said to Sonic, "Prince Nickolas."

Said hedgehog swallowed his comically full mouth, this time fully choking on the curry-covered hot-dog. When Sonic finally recovered from his windpipe rejecting the food, he could only hoarsely scream "Prince?" before falling out of his chair in shock. Quickly getting up again, the blue hedgehog leered at the tapir Oracle on the opposite end of the table. Composing himself once more, Sonic calmly tried to save face calmly repeating the forbidden title.

"Yes, young hedgehog. And for the quest you'll about to take to destroy the militant government that Lord Cypress had set up over your inherited lands." The Oracle paused, using his green magic to conjure a glass of cold water in his hands. Drinking the magically-made drink then continued his explanation "Your journey will start with the friends that you've already met in the Resistance."

"...Uncle Chuck's group? Why would I need them?" The blue hedgehog tried to continue his bait of chilli dogs calmly, despite his usually strong appetite had quieted earlier.

"You should not think like that; they would be the ones who will help you on your quest." The Oracle calmly replied. "In fact, the more important thing is to find your friends..." the Tapir paused for dramatic effect. "...also, you should consider your siblings, Sonia and Manic."

This time, Nickolas could only confusedly gape at the Tapir-man.

* * *

Elsewhere, a figure looks at a large jumbo-tron computer screen being the only light in the room. A whooshing sound came from behind the figure at the screen. "Report." The person watching the screen said.

A dark, long-haired Caucasian man bowed. He was wearing a dark leather vest, showing his scars and abs to the world. Greyish-blue eyes that were looking towards the screen in front of the figure were nearly blinded by multiple scar wounds all across his face. A black leather collar was around the man's neck. His hiking boots are also made of black leather, though the soles on the boots were a light grey. His pants were the only thing to not black-coloured or made of leather material. However, the light blue jeans were torn and faded from constant wear. The man rose from his position, his skinny pony-tail slid down his back.

"Some soldiers have discovered a young girl with a Neutral Power chao within the hospital room. Unfortunately, we've discovered high amounts of channelled energy covering the room and the two. The girl herself seems to know about it, but she fell asleep as soon as we used the spell on her." The man's baritone voice said with tainted strain. "We discovered from the pet that the girl is Hope Kintobor, daughter of Harold Kintobor."

That caught the figure's attention quickly. But instead of turning around from the blank screen, the figure simply asked: "Are the Oracles on the move?"

"No sir. In fact, none of them have expended their energies beyond cheap magic tricks." The dark-haired man growled in shame. "Only one of them managed to escape, and it was obvious he had left long before the troops managed to find the cavern."

"Have you conducted the search party?"

"I ordered it before I finished the other assignment. I have just managed to find the royal treasury's lost jewels." The man in black said a glint of maniacal glee in his blue eyes. "I presume you wish to recollect them?"

The figure finally turned towards the rugged man to face him, a similar sense of joy glowing behind his eyes.

"Go ahead, Hunter."

* * *

The Oracle sighed as he wiped his face clean of splattered chilli-dog, complementary to one stunned Nickolas 'Sonic' Soundbreaker, who had earlier apologized for his (respectfully reasonable) actions.

"I-I actually have a family? And b-both of my parents are ALIVE?" The blue hedgehog stuttered in joy, trying to understand the information he was given earlier. "Why wasn't I told about them?"

"It was both for your sake and the sake of your sibling's to be kept in the dark, my prince." The green tapir calmly said, not keeping his eyes off of Sonic's neck, where the blue glowing guitar medallion was hanging. The Oracle threw away his chilli-ruined handkerchief in the dustbin as he continued. "If you went searching for your mother sooner, a terror far greater than you would have ever hope to beat would come out of the ashes of Cypress' corpse."

"Of course, a stupid death-sentence for a SMART answer. I totally understand, your Riddle-ness." Sonic snarked. The hedgehog then quickly apologized for the comment. "But really though? 'A terror far greater than I could ever hope to beat come out of Cypress' corpse'? Sounds a little bit clichéd, if you asked me."

"Unfortunately yes, THAT'S what would have happened had you learned about your parents before you were supposed to." The robed tapir chuckled a bit. "And even then, would you have any reason to believe that some random stranger that looks like you to be your brother or sister?" The Oracle had then asked eyes and body stiffening as he poured the question out.

The tapir prophet let Sonic to stew over his last question for a few seconds, before adding; "I'm sorry to say this, but the magic that keeps the people of Harrion City from rising against they're tyrant had blocked my teleportation spell. Under this contrivance, I wish for you to start looking for your friends before Cypress' troops get here."

"Wait-WHAT THE HECK?! You waited _this_ long to spill that bit of information out?!" Sonic squealed, before jumping over the vanishing table to grab the brooch of the Oracle of Delpheius' robe. "Why didn't you SAY SOMETHING earlier!" The Hedgehog then decided that shaking the old man was more important than escaping from the danger, and started doing what his anger told him to do.

"The only reason I withheld the information was because you needed to understand your mission." The elder tapir calmly said, despite being shaken by an enraged, slightly overweight blue hedgehog. "I would have told you right there and then, but a little Flickey had told me that you are not the best negotiator. Besides," The Oracle carefully removed Nickolas' hands from the brooch, causing Sonic to gape at the high amount of control the robed tapir had over him. "What you need to do right now is this: find your friends and your siblings, and leave the city boundaries without getting caught. Only your dragon knows that there's trouble afoot, and I really don't think any of you know of your powers."

_Powers?_ Sonic thought quickly, before being forced to file the information away as the Tapir continued:

"There will be a few of my friends waiting to train each and every one of you in understanding and controlling your powers. If you wish to know about finding your friends and family let me part with this; your medallion will show you the way." With that, the Oracle started to disappear in a green whirlwind, sucking up Nickolas' protests as the hedgehog was pushed away from the vortex. When the energy dissipated, Sonic found himself quill-first stuck on the living room wall. He quickly pulled himself away from the wall just as he heard shouting just outside.

"Great. Just my luck." The hedgehog muttered to himself, before turning heel and running towards the back door.

* * *

"Geez," a word sputtered out of the being before becoming full out gasping once again. Trying to recollect his breath, the figure looked up to the dark grey sky. As each gasp of breath struggled into feeding his lungs, the oddity in the night let his mind wander to the events of that day.

_Okay, Ovi. Let's think about this for a second. First of all, the day started out like normal._ His mind stopped when he thought he heard something other than his ragged breathing, but continued thinking when he didn't hear anything else. _I ended up in hospital for the _fifth _time, only because I'm having anorexic problems._ He gulped what little moisture could be produced to wet his throat for a second. _Then when Miles, Amy and Nickolas came to visit me after Katriss, I end up playing host to an aristocrat and that idiot _EDWARD_._ The being- Ovi- grounded his teeth in frustration and nearly spat at the name.

*stomp* *stomp*

Ovi quickly kept himself silent. When the sound of military boots got thinner instead, he let out a huge sigh of relief. _THEN, some strange vortex portal thingy sends me to the other side of the CITY, which makes me think that Hope has been captured by these moron soldiers looking for the 'Royal Jewels'-_ The brown-eyed being quickly looked over his shoulder to see what was coming, noticing a blue light coming closer. _And to top it all off_\- He quickly grabbed the closest thing he could use as a weapon, which Ovi had found later to be a rusty pipe. When the blue light got close enough of his swinging range, he decided to ditch the cover of shadow. What stepped out into the blue light was _not_ an eighteen year old boy with orange bed-hair and square, blue-framed glasses on his face. It was instead an orange rat wearing a long, swallow-tailed dark- brown trench coat, with blue-framed glasses covering his large brown eyes looking at the source of the light. The only thing on his lower body happened to be light blue sneakers, worn from the constant running. He readied is left arm quickly to swing the makeshift weapon as he thought:

_I just happen to wake up as a damn Sewer Rat._


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Holding out for a Hero

* * *

The sky roared venomously as the dark clouds shot out hard strikes of lightning towards the unsuspecting ground below. None sensible in the city of Harrion ventured out of the safety of their homes, fearful that karma would strike each and every one of them. Those who were a little bit braver or don't have a shelter to speak of huddled together near the buildings for protection against the raging sky. The wind raced through the empty streets. Only the sound of whirring automatons moving towards their destination broke the constant pattern of the vengeful weather.

Robots, each with a different bug shape and design, rolled through the dirty streets to search for the missing treasures of the unofficial Queen Aleena. A set of beetle-like robots rolled on their mono-wheel as they searched each and every corner. Sniper modeled robotic bees buzzed overhead, checking the rooftops as well as the areas around where the beetle-bots couldn't reach. A set of crab-robots opened their pincers, revealing small blaster guns in between where the pincers intersect. Instead of firing, the crab-bots instead held the charge for the shot, illuminating the area around them.

A sound vibrated in the alleyways the robots were nearby, making the 'buzz bombers' switch the guns onto 'kill' rather than 'stun'. The 'crabmeats' fired their charged shots at the walls, destroying the walls that their claws had pointed at. The mechanic animals moved toward the original location of the sound, a feat not so daunting to a robot. However, what their optics registered instead was a small green dragon, growling and hissing at them. What the badnicks last registered in their data files was that the dragon changed shape and colour.

* * *

"So you're saying that you're a prince?" Ovi was astounded by the information he was given. His voice betrayed the shock and undeniable horror of what he just heard. Having found out that Manic was related to Sonic seemed to completely shocked the once-human-turned-rat into near silence. After Kintobor had wacked the blue hedgehog with the rusty pipe—and nearly giving Nickolas a concussion while doing so—he had barely muted the hedgehog in his mind until the words 'Prince Nickolas' was uttered. When Nickolas had recovered from being wacked like a piñata, the hedgehog had almost punched the rat in retaliation for hurting Sonic. After clearing up the fact that yes, the rat WAS Ovi Kintobor, Sonic had stopped his near-assault and explained the situation to the once human.

"For the umpteenth time, YES. I'm a prince." Both blue hedgehog and orange rat were walking around the polluted alleyways, making sure they weren't caught by the increased volume of badnicks along the main streets. Sonic had been frustrated with his childhood friend's denial of the situation. Nickolas sighed tiredly before saying "We have to find Tails, Amy, Allegro, and the other two... what where their names again?" Sonic pondered for a few seconds, causing Kintobor to snap out of his undisguised horror.

"WHAT. You forgot already?" Ovi exclaimed. He looked at the hedgehog next to him with a dumbfounded expression before changing it into a neutral expression. "Of course you did forget their names, they aren't really important to you."

"Actually, they are important..." Nickolas trailed off when he finally remembered the names of his siblings. But before he could look at Ovi in satisfaction, a loud scream came from in front of both hedgehog and rat, causing the two of them to start running toward the sound. Before Ovi could start running, Sonic blasted away from the rat, causing Ovi himself to face-plant to the ground in shock.

"What the-?" the orange rat quickly picked himself off the ground, looking at the direction that Sonic had went with a wide-eyed expression before running where the sound came from.

* * *

When Orgville had managed to get to the location where Sonic had ran ahead to, he realized that the name that Ovi and everyone of Sonic's friends had given him may have not been that ironic. When Ovi was catching his breath, he took a gander at where Nickolas was, who was looking at the location with wide eyes. Sonic then looked down at his shoes, before smiling at the interesting idea that he _was faster than sound_. The blue hedgehog finally looked up toward Ovi with a confidant smile on his face. Nickolas from that point on was no longer the slacking quiet person that never seemed to care for the outside world.

Sonic finally felt alive, and free from the chains of society.

Kintobor was shocked at the sudden quick transformation with Sonic's personality. To Ovi, it almost looked near insane to the human-turned-rat. In fact, he could have sworn that he heard himself squeaking in awe at the sudden transformation. Sonic turned toward his older friend, and held out his hand to help Ovi back to his feet. The rat accepted the help, mostly using Sonic's arms as a rope as Ovi got onto his feet. They both looked around at the disgusting alleyway they were in, realizing the one thing that they both hadn't noticed since they first met up: the world seemed to be in many shades of grey, and I mean the colours—not the horrible fan-fiction turned 'original' book.

"Oh dear..." Ovi said unenthusiastically, scared more than surprised. Nothing that should be coloured in a different way was, just a different shade of gray instead. The scream they heard before vibrated off the walls of the buildings once again, only this time they sounded closer. Sonic was about to go into another run when Kintobor grabbed his right arm, making Sonic turn to see his childhood friend in a palette of light and dark greys, nothing in white or black.

"What- Ovi! Your body colour turned grey!?" Sonic nearly shrieked out, causing Ovi to look at himself. Indeed, the human-turned-rat was coloured in nothing but greys, no amount of Ovi's body had any other colour other than grey—save for the irises, which still had the reddish-brown look to them.

"What the HECK?" Ovi could only stare at his hands foe a few seconds, before realizing that Sonic was the only thing that was coloured normally. "Why are you the only one that's not grey?" Sonic then looked down at himself. Indeed, the colouration of Nickolas' body was still coloured the way he was, as if the odd spell around the two of them hadn't noticed the blue hedgehog. An odd sense of mystery passed through both of the animal's minds. Sonic then remembered that there was a scream earlier, grabbing the still thinking Kintobor and carrying the human turned rat toward the location of the scream in bridal style.

"What?" Kintobor snapped out of his day-dreaming when Sonic picked him up. "Great, I look weak..." He said tiredly.

* * *

A large roar shook the alley ways, seemingly chasing something for a snack. A young child's scream failed to block out the roar behind the child itself. As the kid got closer to what little light could be found in the dangerous section of Harrion City, revealed that the child was a grey-scaled version of the fox Tails. However, the fox was running away from the sound of the roaring behind him. The young genius was slightly crying as he ran.

"What the heck was THAT?" The young fox half-whispered, half-shouted over the constant destruction within the disgusting and un-kept alleys. He was downright terrified, having no other options when he saw the beast—he couldn't think of a name for it—destroy large amounts of robots that were attacking it. Miles didn't get a good look of the beast, as its cyan blue scales shone brightly into his eyes, distracting him long enough to give his presence to the large animal. When the source of the reflected light disappeared, Tails uncovered his eyes to reveal a large, cyan coloured, light pink eyed dragon curiously looking back at him. When his mind had registered what was looking at him (which wasn't very long, mind you), the first thing that came out of his mouth was a large, long scream.

It didn't take long for the two-tailed fox to start running immediately, the large dragon quickly behind him. It wasn't long before the fox had realized that the dragon was catching up to his running speed, freaking Miles out of his mind. It wasn't too long before his (oddly, now cooperative) mind told him to _Twist your tails like a helicopter!_

"W-What?" nevertheless, Tails did just that, and found to his amazement how _fast_ he was going, faster than even the dragon that was long since fed on his dust. He stopped with some difficulty, before Tails started to look back at the alleyway that he flew/ran through. The fox-genius started celebrating his newest success in life, not noticing the sound of flapping wings above and behind him. It wasn't until Tails heard the dragonish chuckling that the 12-year old looked behind him, seeing a snickering dragon right behind him. Tails screamed for a second time before launching himself far away from the monstrous dragon behind him. Currently, Tails himself was shaking behind a pile of rubbish, too scared to get himself up from his spot for fear of being spotted.

"S-sonic, where ARE you?" he nearly whined, Tails' voice held a bite of bitterness behind it however. He didn't know _why _he is being so Chaos-infested bitter toward his older best friend, someone who he had always saw as the greatest big-brother he ever had (which wasn't much, considering that Sonic is the only person that had that title). Nothing was making sense anymore—why was everything, including Tails himself, coloured in a greyish tone? Why wasn't the dragon coloured similarly to the world around it? Where was Sonic? Where is Kintobor? And where the heck is everyone else? For a person like Tails, it was hard to ignore. If it weren't the fact that Tails knew that the odd light that had warped all of his friends (and the two hedgehogs he had just met then) was obviously planned to take them away at some point.

As he was thinking about the complications of the sudden magical warp, the sound of fast pit-pat of feet echoed throughout the alleyways, along with sounds of an...Argument between two people; it wasn't until the word 'stop' vibrated through the walls that the two people ended up crashing into a nearby wall. A sonic boom blasted throughout the area a few seconds after the crash, causing Tails' inner ears to pop loudly. When the large wind died down was when Miles had decided to peek out of the rubbish dump he was hiding at. When he checked the damage, what he saw was the prone figures of Nickolas 'Sonic' Soundbreaker and Orgville Maurice 'Ovi' Kintobor lying prone on the dirty alley floor, and Tails couldn't help but think that they could be-

"Sonic!" Tails quickly got up from his position behind the trash hill, using his tails absently to reach the bodies of the two people who he could actually call friends. While Ovi Kintobor was still a bit in the grey area for the young fox, Sonic was-and still is-the only friend he could call his best friend. Fearing the worst, Tails quickly attempted to check both of their pulses, not realizing that Sonic still had his colour scheme instead of the black, white, and grey that Miles was now used to. When he was about to put his two finger's to his brother-bond's neck was when he heard the blue hedgehog start to chuckle, which turned into full out cackling as Tails pushed himself back in horror.

Sonic ended up laughing for a full three minutes, where in that time Ovi got himself up and groaned, making Tails realize that the token human that was in his group of friends was no longer a human; instead, Ovi looked vaguely like a actual grey rat now. He was too busy looking at Ovi to realize that the now rat had said something. When Tails had registered that Ovi himself had spoken to the fox, he apologized and asked Kintobor to repeat what he said earlier.

"I just asked you what was up. You look a little out of it." Kintobor repeated, without the usual harsh edge that Tails had long since been used to. For the fox, it seemed to be the icing on the weirdness cake for the week's events. In fact, Tails wasn't sure if this _was_ Kintobor anymore. Sure, Tails had always known that the once-human had a soft spot for kids; but the fox always knew that whenever Sonic was around, Ovi never had bothered to show his kindness toward both Amy and Tails.

"I-I'm fine, just a little overwhelmed..." Tails was about to go on a tangent about how the word 'whelmed' seems to never be used in the English language as a whole when the roar of a dragon vibrated throughout the walls of the buildings that create the alleyways around them. At that exact moment, Sonic got up onto his feet in no less than a few seconds, his (to him) funny moment gone. As soon as both Tails and Ovi got themselves off their butts, Nickolas' non-dominant hand instinctively ahead of the fox-kit to protect the youngest of the new trio. Ovi Kintobor also did the same thing, except that the rat's right hand shot toward Miles Prower instead of Sonic's left.

"Tails, do _you_ know what that is?" Both Sonic and Ovi asked, before looking at each other in slight confusion.

"I wouldn't know! All I know is that it started coming after me!" Tails nearly shrieked, the fox about to go into hysterics as the _stomp-stomp_ of the dragon beast approached them much quicker than before.

"Calm down, Tails." Kintobor said calmly, snapping Tails out of his near-hysteria, before turning around to relax the young fox. Sonic turned toward Miles and gave a thumbs-up to him, effectively calming the fox completely.

The stomping of the beast got closer, and both Sonic and Ovi returned to their original position, turning around to see the cyan scaled, pink-eyed dragon in front of them. The dragon's eyes shone with amusement at the trio of animals, causing the three heroes to look at the dragon in confusion. A heavy silence reigned over the four of them, none of them sure who would move first.

"Why isn't it attacking us?" Ovi was the first to break the silence, silent enough so that the dragon couldn't hear him. But before an answer could be uttered by either Sonic or Tails, the dragon started to _chuckle_. This odd reaction caused the three animals to flinch into the ready position, worried about the possible attack the dragon could use. When the dragon finished its snickering, it 'spoke' with a voice that all three of them could remember off the top of their head:

"_It's nice to see you guys again. Especially you, my Prince Sonic._"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The King That Never Was

* * *

Sounds of metal against concrete vibrated throughout the streets of Harrion City, scaring the residents of the bleak cursed city into hiding. The only ones who haven't gone into hiding were the risk-takers or the ones that the robots were searching for. These robots were looking for Queen Aleena's "Royal Jewels", the very things Aleena treasured the most out of everything in existence. The robot's optics was turned on to search for the very 'jewels' that they were ordered to look for. As they searched, they had failed to search the sewers, though it was due to their lack of water resistance more than their stupidity. So, that was where three hedgehogs were hiding. Two of them were female, while the male was upset about the females whining. "Would you just _shut up_ you TWO?" The green hedgehog yelled, his voice echoing within the sewers.

"Manic, you have to remember that _spiny annoying princess _here," Amy pointed toward Sonia in half anger, her pink quills shaking along with the rest of her body. "She had to complain about the amount of robots in the streets, _before_ she decided on complaining on going into, and being in, the sewers this instant!" The younger of the trio added, her face exasperated from the two's own bickering.

"What do YOU mean by that?" The adopted Windlemire snapped, her eyes glaring into the backs of both Clasher and Rose, "I cannot believe any of you would THINK that you could drag me into the WORST PLACE ever for a high class citizen like ME—" Sonia's colour was vanishing from her body, the grey colouring eating her natural colours from the bottom up.

"What the heck?" Both Amy and Manic said, noticing the change on Elizabeth's body. Said purple hedgehog looked confusingly at them, before looking down toward where both Amy and Edward were looking at. The pompous high class citizen shrieked as she saw herself being muted in her colours completely by the time she realized what had happened. Sonia fell onto her butt, devastated about how drained she felt. "What—what just happened to me?" She asked the two hedgehogs in front of her, her green-blue eyes being the only things that weren't greyed completely.

"I...I really don't know." Manic said, noticing that he himself was becoming as grey as Sonia. Clasher quickly picked up the now grey hedgehog, getting Amy to bring herself closer so that they could both carry Sonia out of the sewer. "Let's just get out of here." He said quickly, telling Amy to quickly move so that they wouldn't get caught by drones that patrolled the areas in the sewers.

"I thought you said that there WERE no robots down here, thief!" Amy growled, about to flick her wrist before realizing what she was involuntarily doing. The pink hedgehog instead pointed the hand that had nearly called... whatever she wanted to call to use to threaten the unknown sibling of Sonic.

"Geez, I only remembered that NOW." Manic angrily said, point his own index finger back at Amy. They were just about out of the sewers when Amy brought that up. "The drones don't really do anything; they just take pictures of every one of us for reference." Edward calmed himself as they breathed the fresh, smoggy air of outer Harrion City. "Besides, you'd have noticed if they were there; the drones are clunky and they make a lot of noise." As he said that, a roar pierced the heavens above the trio of hedgehogs. Sonia, Manic, and Amy all looked upwards toward a cyan dragon, its scales glittering beautifully in the greyed sky. It was then the trio noticed that a lot of the world around them was covered in complete and utter shades of grey.

"Hey, you guys!" A voice said above the dragon, the voice sounding like Tails to Amy. The dragon landed, stretching its neck down to the ground to reveal Sonic, Miles 'Tails' Prower, and Orgville Maurice "Ovi" Kintobor, the only one not greyed in colour—besides the dragon itself—was Sonic, who still kept his colouring despite what was happened to the others. The ones on the dragon moved toward the ground, gathering around the ones who came out of the sewer system. Ovi went toward the trio, picking up Sonia before anyone realized that he was turned into a rat.

"Big Kinti, why are you a—"

"Don't. Finish. That sentence." Ovi said, not into explaining what had happened to him until they were very, _very_ far away from the city. "We apparently need to get out of this dump as fast as possible, because apparently, someone's chasing after the three hedgehogs." He said quickly, pointing towards Manic and Sonia as he slung the tired female over his shoulder, his breath being caught as his body remembered that he wasn't a human anymore. "Allegro will explain on the way. We all need to get going."

"Hold on! What about my thieving gang? Or my adoptive father, Ferral?" Manic asked, having remembered about his foster family as he realized what Orgville was talking about leaving their old home.

"We can't leave my fiancé or my mother behind as well!" Sonia said tiredly, trying and failing to get out of the human-turned-rat's grip.

"Or what about my own parents? Who are possibly still stuck inside?" Amy quickly asked, having remembered that her own parents were still stuck inside.

"Then we have no choice but to go back!" Sonic quickly said, deciding for the rest of the group. They all agreed on this... except for Ovi.

"This is a bad idea! We don't even KNOW if we can get back there before—"Ovi didn't finish as a bright green light shot down toward the group of animayans, who were frozen mentally as an light-green elderly tapir appeared: The Oracle of Delphius his expression solemn as he addressed the seven.

"I'm afraid that you're all too late." He said sadly, his hands creating a ball of what had happened to the three hedgehog's parents. Two hedgehogs, the male red and the female brown, a large centipede-like creature, and a wealthy looking female brown dog covered in metallic parts, the amount on their bodies indicated how unforgivable their crimes against the Lord were. Everyone gasped at this, as they had never heard of something like this before.

"NOOOO..." Sonia yelled. Tails looked at the magic-made image in fear and shock. Manic, Amy, Sonic, and Allegro look at the scene in differing versions of anger and sadness. Kintobor looked mad at this revelation, noticing that the tapir was turning them around for his own ideals.

"You will not be able to help them out with the level that your powers you have currently." The magical green tapir said, as if reading Ovi's mind. "You must undertake a long quest in order to control your powers, and you must learn about one another throughout your journey." He said solemnly. The Oracle of Delphius used his magic to make a weathered, old fashioned map from out of nowhere. He used the magic to give the map to Sonic, who took it into his hands eagerly. "Use this to meet one of your teachers in the Forest of Gallivis. He will teach you how to control you're inherent powers, as well as understand how to work with each other's own." He vanished as Nickolas opened the map.

As Tails, Amy, and Sonia looked over the blue hedgehog's shoulder, Kintobor suddenly gained an itch on his forehead. When Ovi went to scratch it, the dullness disappeared to give way to full-blown pain that gave the human-turned-rat a headache.

Images were flowing in his mind's eye, distracting him as he saw—

_The bully who had called him the rat animayan, holding what looked like a seed in his hand..._

_A younger version of Ovi, looking scared as the colourful world around the seed seemed to become greyed around the seed itself..._

_The bully's friends pinning down the younger-and weaker-human Orgville as the leader placed the seed onto where his heart was in the body..._

_The mysterious seed disappearing into his body, as a burning sensation caused Ovi to scream madly—_

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—" He screamed as his mind enacted the burning sensation where his heart was. His hands attempted to grab the area where his mind was placing the damaging thing, causing his skin where his heart was to bleed as he continuously gripped and pulled the deadly area.

Manic and Amy were the first to react to the orange rat's instant reaction, the both of them grabbing one arm so that they could stop Ovi from harming himself any further. Sonia and Tails both ran around to catch the now kicking legs, holding Ovi in place until the rat's hysteria passed. When Ovi finally calmed down, his entire chest was covered in scratches. Each scratch save for some of them being not very deep at all, had lightly pooled small amounts of blood all over his grey body, staining him completely red. Ovi's brown eyes looked at his body in quizzical interest, before realizing what he was looking at. His eyes instantly widened as his now functioning brain connected the dots to how he got those.

"How...what the heck is happening to me?" He rhetorically asked the others, noticing Sonic was making sure that none of the larger cuts were going to bleed forever via using one of his old white gloves over Ovi's chest. The orange rat instantly fainted from tiredness and blood loss.

* * *

When the once human had fainted from exhaustion, he attempted to move the unconscious wounded rat toward Allegro, before Sonia slammed her hand onto Sonic's left shoulder.

"Sonic, you could kill him if he moves too much." Sonia said quietly, before grabbing the unconscious body and putting Ovi back on the ground.

"_He's not doing to bleed to death; his self-inflicted wounds are just long, not deep._" Allegro communicated, scaring the sewage covered hedgehogs. Manic, Sonia, and Amy all looked at the large cyan-coloured dragon; who was changing back into her younger, green-scaled form. The now smaller dragon went over toward Nickolas' side, and like a cat, circled around the hedgehog's legs a few times before lying down on the iconic red shoes.

"Gehbah..." Allegro said as she fell asleep, making her blue quilled hatcher unable to move from his spot, causing the hedgehog to become unable to move around. Manic and Sonia had looked at each other in slight confusion, having only seen the dragon like that when...

"Oh... right." Edward had remembered what he had done earlier, and quickly apologized toward the others. "It... was just something that I probably wouldn't have attempted if I was even thinking straight." The thief sighed, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. He looked at the group, noticing that the purple hedgehog was way too close to his personal bubble, shaking his shoulders as she spewed out insult after insult.

"Look, we have no time for this." Tails finally said, gaining the attention of everyone awake at the moment. "We need to get going on this... thing that old man—"

"The Oracle of Delpheius." Sonic said suddenly, causing Tails to lose his concentration.

"R-right... The Oracle of Delpheius told us to do." The two tailed fox finished. "And I don't think that we should stay here for too long. Remember the robots patrolling the city?" He asked the rest, who were all looking at each other sheepishly. "Sonic, you should wake Allegro up and get her to carry Ovi carefully in the sky; the rest of us should just gather whatever we need to collect from our homes without the robots catching us." The young fox commanded.

* * *

Hunter stood at the last sighting of the "blue royal jewel of Aleena", the delinquent Nickolas 'Sonic' Soundbreaker, foster child to the leader of the Resistance Charles 'Chuck' Soundbreaker, and former foster child to the late Mister and Mistress Mowz, who were 'killed' in a fire accident. The dark-haired hunter looked at the now destroyed hidden base in feral anger, having found nothing related to the two hedgehogs while 'searching' (read: vandalizing) the once colourful home; his hand clenching harder as his muscles tensed. The human had a light grey rod that was held within his clenched hand, its ends having light green jewels on both ends.

"Damn it, they got away..." Hunter said loudly, his teeth barred as he began to growl to the 'Badnicks' "Destroy the remains of this place! If you find anything related to the wanted, bring it to ME!" the robots activated their cannons as soon as the command finished ringing through the air, the mechanical Slicer bringing a single blue quill that was found on the floor. It eagerly ran back outside, careful not to bump into anyone as it hoped to give the master the item he was looking for. As soon as he got the quill, the Slicer ran as fast as it could before—

Hunter blasted the robot, freeing the trapped animal inside. He didn't bother to look at the remains of the Slicer as he held the chilli-scented quill. The pale human sniffed the small forgotten remains of the blue hedgehog, recognizing it easily as the hedgehog he was looking for. Hunter smirked gleefully, bringing a hand to his ear piece to send out the small victory to his teammates.

"Sleet! I've gotten a scent of the lost jewel. Have you found anything at your location?" Hunter heard some swearing over the other end of the line, smirking as he caught his partner off guard.

"O-of course I have! I've sent Dingo over to that stupid thieving street rats' place!" a nasally voice snarled, Hunter could almost hear the spit getting all over the microphone on the moron's end. "The moronic hedgehogs aren't the cleanest when it comes to their quills. They are so much like their father about those damn things." He could hear the nasally laughter coming out of his partners voice as Sleet continued. "I can't _wait_ for when we hunt them DOWN and collect our bounty!" Now Hunter could hear the iconic laugh over the radio, gleefully loud as the thought of money soon to be in their palms.

"Have you heard from that gigantic oaf, yet?" Hunter had to bring his partner from cloud nine however, as Sleet tended to become blinded by his fantasies whenever they had a mission going on.

"Oaf? Who the [Duck] has called me that? Was it you, Lunar?" A much gruffer, more simpleton voice said, causing the black coloured hunter to curse his luck.

"Damn it; you moronic overgrown science experiment! How many times do I have to beat you up to get this through your thick skull; Do not. Call me. LUNAR!" Hunter yelled back into the microphone, hoping that it would blow out the numbskull's eardrums.

"You're a [duckling] idiot if you think that will work there, Werewolf?" The gruff voice continued, not at all affected by Hunter's yelling. "If you're not calling me by my [duckling] name, I won't call you by yours!"

"...Dingo you [duckling] moron. Have you found anything over at your position?" Sleet asked the brutish voice, not having any of his partner's bickering for today. Today was too good of a day for any of them to argue.

"Of course I have, you Chaos infested morons! I'm really excited for finding those damned children of Skylocke and getting rid of them for the Lord Sypress!" Both Hunter and Sleet had expected that Dingo was waving around the dark green quill over his head repeatedly, not noticing it puncturing his overly muscled skin as he stomped around the thieves' camp. "I'll love to hear his pathetic wailing when we're finished with his damned kids." The mood whiplash was just as expected, as Dingo had a sour history with the former hero turned fallen rebel king.

"You and me both, Dingo." Sleet said, also having had a similar history with the heroic hedgehog.

"Maybe after we've skinned his children for Sypress, how about we make a decorative rug out of that stupid Skylocke for when we complete this bounty?" Hunter finally finished, knowing full well his bloodlust would be happily agreed with due to their hatred of Stanley 'Skylocke' Soundbreaker. His eyes gleamed in the flames of Sonic's childhood house as he imagined the crimson rain that would come whenever he became 'feral'.


	10. Chapter 10

Sonic Underground Remix Chapter 10

The Elephant in the Room

* * *

Metallic sounds were the first to greet Hope Selene Kintobor when she started to wake up. It wasn't until a few seconds later that the blonde girl had registered the uncomfortable sensation that was on both sides of her body. There was also a constant draft that was in the room, which had indicated to the waking child that she wasn't at her home with her big brother Ovi, who was always pushing himself too hard and trying too hard to be both mum and dad. Hope was constantly worried about her poor brother's health, as she had always thought that her brother was getting less cuddly when hugging, and more hurtful and pointy whenever the two of them hugged each other. It wasn't a BAD hurting against her, mind you, but Hope knew that Ovi felt a bit too weak to her. Her thoughts on her brother vanished when she realized _where_ exactly the young girl was.

"_I'm... Am I in jail?_" Hope thought quickly, lifting her entire body off of what she had finally registered as a 'plank bed'. Her red-brown eyes scanned the jail cell; before finding her Dragon chao friend on the ground in front of her. Like the overall clad child was, Boomy is in full sleep, muttering to himself about whatever he was dreaming about while scratching his own backside tiredly. The orange-red chao rolled over to his side, shivering as his body registered the coldness of the room. Hope knew that if she woke her chao right now, said dragon plush would be cranky and unable to help her out of this situation.

Hope decided to ignore her chao, and instead went toward the metal bars encasing the only way out. The bars were designed to keep all sorts of animals—whether human or chao—from totally breaking the bars entirely. Instead of trying to attempt her escape on her own, Hope listened to the hallway outside of the metal bars to hear what was coming.

"...are you sure it's a good idea, old man?" a raspy voice echoed through the halls, Hope suspected that it was a female that said voice belong to. "Lord Sypress would have—"

"Don't you DARE bring up that moronic tin tyrant's name when father is speaking, Evangeline!" A much deeper, but just as dehydrated as the female's screeched in the halls, making the child behind bars to turn her entire head away from the loud sound. "Besides, I'm sure he's got that planned... right father?" she continued, allowing Hope to turn her head back toward the bars carefully. What she got instead however was a fright.

There was a strange man in front of her, having a big brushy moustache (that reminded her of walrus whiskers, oddly) that was a bright red-brown. He had strange frames that covered his eyes completely with blue glass. The man was extremely lanky despite his egg-like shape. He was wearing a red jacket with yellow buttons and white straps, a small yellow collar cape hanging off of his back. Black stretchy yoga pants and boots of similar colours covered the lower portion of his body completely, making Hope wonder if the pants and the shoes were actually a one piece. The man himself had no hair despite the next two people that came up when she screamed at the man. They both have very similar colours and clothing to the old man, save for both the younger two (yet much, MUCH older than Hope's big brother) having hair: the childish-looking male had a darker, more coppery hair while the female had long, strawberry-blond hair.

"Why YES Of course I've got every-thing sorted out, Andrew my boy!" the Eggman said, patting the younger male on the shoulder as he continued to explain. "I've managed to make it as convincing as possible! 'Let's interrogate a poor, impressionable little girl about the location of all of her father's inventions!' Oh, isn't that a GOOD IDEA. But unlike the moron that tuna can has for a second-in-command, I know that it's doomed from the start." The old man started to chortle vigorously, causing the two adults (for how could they not be if they look older than Ovi?) to sigh at what Hope assumed was natural for the old man to do.

The male, Andrew, had turned toward the woman beside him and whispered lightly "I think he's finally gone off the deep end, sis..." to her.

The Eggman turned quickly toward Andrew, and gave him a good old fashioned glare behind his large obscuring glasses. He then turned back toward the plump woman beside Andrew, asking "Evangeline, could you make sure that the cameras in this hallway are 'fixed' properly for all of us? We wouldn't want any... trouble to come around when they find out this 'general' isn't on their side." Evangeline went ahead to do what the older man wanted, taking along her much slimmer brother with her by the arm.

"Now that they're doing what I want them to do, I would like to ask you a favour little one..." the Eggman pointed his left index finger to Hope's face, nearly poking her petite nose. "I've noticed that you have an eye for mechanical and programming technologies. At least, from what I could gather from the elementary school files they have on you, you're obviously not the type to like what girls these days like..." was this man going to tell Hope that she shouldn't do what she wants because she's a girl? "I need your HELP!" Wait, what? Hope's face must have mirrored her confusion, as the man began to grovel on the floor as he continued his speech. "Y-you see, I need to help the very people who are trying to help out your brother's friends! They are currently going to help him try to find you, but Sypress wouldn't allow you to live for much longer!

"My badnicks are currently being used as Sypress' main army, with a velociraptor robot as their main commander!" Hope couldn't ask what the egg-guy meant by that, as her dragon-looking chao woke up at this moment. The chao tiredly fluttered to where both humans were at the end of the cage. He looked to the oddly shaped human, before almost reacting harshly to the man with Hope trying to calm the suddenly enraged chao. When Boomy realized that he wasn't getting out of Hope's grip, he sighed and looked darkly at the Eggman in front of them.

"I need your skills to create a super powerful virus to help out your brother immediately!" Only Boomy noticed the smirk as his care taker started to beam excitedly. "As you are the only one I could easily get to at this time, and your brother had disappeared off the map at this point, I acquire your brilliance and expertise!" He said as he finally bowed to the girl. "Please help me help the guys who want to help your brother! For if I, Dr. Eggman of Eggman Enterprises and Third General to Sypress' Sky-Corps cannot get the expertise I require, then I cannot help out your brother!" _Hook, Line, and Sinker._ Eggman said to himself gleefully, as a loud screech of 'yes!' came out of Hope's cheerful face.

* * *

It took a while for Ovi to finally wake, tiredly noticing that only he and Sonic were the only ones nearby the sewer entrance that Amy, Manic and Sonia had came through before Kintobor's freak-out. The orange furred rat had realized that he was lying on his back; his dulled glasses were off his face. As Ovi recognized that, his eyes strained to even see the ground under him, and he scurried to find his glasses before he gained the headache the size of Jupiter. He hurriedly put on the sight correction device before Sonic turned his head toward him, smiling at the human-turned-rat. As the hedgehog got up, the dragon that pranced everywhere with Sonic had also awoken, now back into the size that Ovi was accustomed to.

"Sleep well?" Sonic asked kindly, reaching for Ovi's jacket (that the rat had realized was covering him like a blanket to keep him from shivering) before the orange furred being swatted said hand away.

"Better than what happened earlier... What happened to the rest?"

"They went to collect whatever stuff they would need before we leave." Sonic shrugged as he continued. "I didn't go as well not just because of you: I don't want to bother with the old memories anymore..."

Ovi nodded at that; he didn't want to remember that Hope was possibly being held hostage right now. But... where the heck did Sonic's apathy for the past come from? "You sure about that answer?"

The answer Sonic gave was just a clueless shrug.

Ovi sighed quietly, not expecting the answer. "What about food, then? We'll need it in order to go where we're told to go..." Ovi got himself up from the ground, his balance completely off as he stumbled about.

Sonic had grabbed Ovi's waist and put an arm around his chest. "I was thinking that the both of us should do that, but we've been branded as criminals against the Lord. I've also noticed that the wanted posters been calling me, Sonia, and Manic the 'missing jewels of Aleena'." He said quietly, before continuing quickly. "I may have miscalculated the speed of which Manic and Sonia would come back at, because they aren't here at all right now. If I knew they were that slow..." Sonic's colour started to grey a bit, but not enough for Ovi to notice it. The blue prince turned toward Ovi suddenly, cheekily waving his right index finger as he said "We have to help them!"

Kintobor blinked once, twice, before his eyelid twitched furiously at the hedgehog. "You DO know that Manic can handle himself?" remember that time...?

"I know about Manic, but what about Sonia? Does she even KNOW combat?" a bit rude if you asked Ovi about this conversation afterwards, but at that point, both of them had not known the purple hedgehog for very long.

"I'm more worried about Amy and Tails, though..." He knew that the two children of the group had no way to defend themselves, unlike Ovi and Sonic. The orange rat had his priorities straight about who was in danger right now.

However, Sonic wasn't having any of this foolishness, and set his sights on his little sister. "Forget about them! I'm going to find Sonia and help her!" He rushed off, going into the direction where he knew Sonia was. Ovi quickly grabbed the small green dragon that nearly ran through his legs and lifted it by the steel collar. Allegro flapped her wings to keep herself from choking on the metallic collar.

"You're coming with me, Allegro. We need to find where Tails and Amy are and help them." The dragon nodded, and closed her eyes to change size and colour for Kintobor to ride on top on. He quickly climbed up the back of Allegro, and made the dragon move by kicking his legs onto her cyan scales. The sound dragon flew up, and then blasted toward where she knew the youngest of the group was.

* * *

At that point, Tails and Amy were just going through the young fox-genius' garage, looking for the Miles Electric prototype that Tails had mentioned to Sonic before they left. Both hedgehog and fox scurried around the entire room, checking even the toolbox that was under a beautiful red bi-plane. The wings and most of the highlights were a greyish white, shinning brilliantly in the little light that the entire open space received. It had a three-plank propeller at the front, which was black with yellow-orange tips on every piece. Tool the robot was sitting inside the cockpit seat of two, watching its creator and his friend calmly ever since they came by.

"Found it!" Tails yelled excitedly, startling the once pink hedgehog behind him. He lifted up what would be considered a Wii U© Game pad, modified to have handles and a radio dish on the right hand side. Most of the controllers and framework were replaced with a yellow metal, possibly discarded when the fox wasn't satisfied with the work he had done before. He stuffed the monitor into his hip-bag when they both heard the sound of Allegro's large wings, hovering slightly above the ground as she prepared to land properly. Her rider had slid off before her paws were on the ground, revealing to be a very distraught and almost collected Ovi Kintobor. He almost seemed to run toward Amy and Tails before quickly bringing them into a hug.

"Are you two alright?" He asked quickly, checking the both of them to see if there were any injuries on either of them. When he had made sure that both of the youngest members of the group had not suffered any injuries, Kintobor pulled back from them—knitting is brows in confusion.

"I'm so totally wrong in my assumptions..." Ovi muttered to himself more, before getting back onto Allegro. "We'll talk on the way! I may have endangered Sonic!" Tails didn't really need another answer to his many questions, as he jumped into the Tornado's pilot seat. Amy looked at the bi-plane, before quickly glancing at where Allegro used to be. The pink hedgehog sighed as she quickly got into the co-pilot seat, nearly sitting on Tool as the two-tailed fox started the engines of the old plane.

* * *

Sonic sped across the country-side, hoping to find the place that Sonia had lived in all of her life sooner rather than later. When he found the exact area where Sonia said she lived in, the blue hedgehog had gracefully failed in stopping, his foot slipped out of pace bringing Nickolas into a tumble that lasted up until the gate of the mansion. As he lifted his head from the ground, he caught sight of the most uninteresting sight his green eyes ever laid upon.

It would be what humans would consider 'extravagant' or a 'flaunt of stolen money'. Greek pillars kept the entire building's structure, which for many was way too large for a small family. It was about at least three stories high, the mansion being very rectangular no matter where you looked at it. Loads upon loads of rather large windows adorned the tanned outside, large mahogany double-doors were nestled within the middle of the place. A very, _very_ large driveway seemed to spill out of the stairs leading to the double-doors, being blindingly bright tan if the sun hit it just right.

All in all, a typical wealthy establishment meant to lock Sonic's long-lost sister inside.

The portly hedgehog pushed himself off of the ground, deciding that for the rest of the mission until Sonia was safe with him that he would keep a much slower pace—at least, until he got the hang of running around at the speed of sound. The blue hedgehog tried to emulate his original running speed before he had discovered his powers, but as Sonic soon found out, he yearned for the constant (yet extremely dangerous) high speed, his body being utterly unwelcoming to his brain's logic. As it were, Nickolas found himself 'running' at least ten steps before a _slight_ burst of speed would propel the hedgehog forward at least 3 metres before stopping.

He kept at this for at least until the front door, which he opened without much of a problem. "_That's definitely a bad sign._" Sonic's mind said plainly, earning a groan from the hedgehog himself as he realized that he may have to break his own rule too soon. The hallways were large and white, blinding the hedgehog as he looked around the first floor for his sister.

A few minutes and a lot of stopping to check _every nook and cranny_, he was about to go up the flight of stairs he had bypassed (With his mind wondering _why_ the foyer wasn't the first room he had entered from the entrance instead of the large, utterly pointless front room that lead to multiple hallways), when he heard a loud shriek coming from the third floor up. Wasting no time to figure out whose voice it was, Sonic dashed up the long flight of stairs. He was so focused on finding out where the sound came from that he didn't notice that the red-tiled floor beneath him had suddenly gained an orange carpet, despite there being no other carpets in any other hallways within the mansion.

SLAM! Nickolas plowed through the doorway just before falling onto his butt and sliding toward Elizabeth, causing her to fall to the ground as well. She landed on top of her slightly large brother, groaning a little from the wind being knocked out of her.

"Good work, Dingo!" A nasally voice said above the two hedgehogs, getting closer as he made sure that the two couldn't escape so soon. Both Sonic and Sonia heard a rather soft click before feeling the weight around their necks double instantly. "That should keep you two in line." The voice continued, as Nickolas realized in horror that his speed was no longer at his beck and call. In fact, he felt largely lethargic as he tried to get up. Sonia also had an odd sense of tiredness, though hers wasn't as extreme as her newly-discovered brother.

"Like them, you little snack? The wonderful collars that I've put around your stupid necks are designed to keep your stupid little super-powers from getting out of hand." The voice forced both hedgehogs' heads to look at their captor, who was a blue-grey wolf in purple armour; he had yellow skulls all over his suit. His body fur (or what little Sonic and Sonia could see, as the wolf was covered to his neck in purple armour) was a light grey, while what little head fur he had along with a goatee-like beard off of his snout was a light blue. The wolf's dark-brown eyes looking down at his captive's own, a maniacal glee shone from within.

"And to think, I was worried that the children of Skylocke and Aleena would give us the run-a-round."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

We Have Next To Nothing

* * *

Manic looked on to the ruins of the thieves hideout, knowing full well there were no survivors. While there had been loads of trash around the base, the hideout just now looked uninhabitable. Charred remains of former lean-to housing, along with former iron worked structures that supported the underground base were now just broken pieces of metal. Edward couldn't even see the pole that kept the hideout's roof from falling on top of it, having been broken when the fight —not fight, _**slaughter**_ of all those living within the hideout—had happened. He could smell what was left of the blood of those who'd fought back. Discarded weapons with motor oil and Red energy littered the ground and walls. If the green thief had looked hard enough, Manic could find the remains of robot models within the destroyed trash and housing.

The green hedgehog fell to his knees, his eyes watering from both the sadness of his foster family and the harsh air within his lungs. Too many harsh memories flooded his mind's eye, causing Manic to force himself away from depression by looking into memories that didn't involve his childhood group instead. Manic's soft cries slowed to a complete stop as he fell asleep, the waterworks no longer running as his mind went to the time that he had been someone else entirely...

* * *

_It seemed to the young hedgehog that he would never get his chance to do some looting for himself. Sure, it was nice working for the Mouse Patrol with the younger kids, but he loved the idea of doing things on his lonesome. So when he had the opportunity to do it, Manic took it the instant the idea came up._

_He had never expected what would happen along the way._

_He held the item cautiously within his dark-coloured cloak, making sure every step of the way that it was still in his grasp. Everything about manic that wasn't covered in the dark cloak was covered in blood—blood of former foes that almost got in his way. While worried that he may have killed the people that was trying to stop him—as his only weapon was sharp daggers, not really safe considering that he hadn't intended on leaving a blood trail—but he _had_ to make sure that what he stole could be used for his buddies back at the underground hideout. The guys at the hideout were suffering from the flu, with some of them dying due to the lack of proper medications and lack of good housing._

_Manic feared about how many people were dying back at home, using his parkour skills to maneuver over the buildings and jumping onto the rooftops like a long-jump competitor. He was about to jump up onto the last (and largest) building that's in the way from his home when he was _SLAMMED_ hard into the building. Manic caught himself by quickly using the fire-escape just above him. The green thief then used the wall he slammed into to propel himself back towards the lower building to use as his brace against the fall._

_Manic had finally landed his feet onto the pavement of the corner in-between the two buildings he had been running on, realizing that it was one of the many alleyways he had traversed along with the Mouse Patrol. The young thief cautiously looked around, seeing a dark figure within the shadows of the large building. While Edward couldn't see what the kid looked like, he was sure that the being within the shadows was a hedgehog and not a human._

"_Better run, Kleptomaniac." The being said and Manic felt someone kick him on the back onto the ground. The person's right foot followed his descent, causing the thief to be pinned to the ground. Manic quickly turned his head to see a human a bit older than he, with orange hair and brown eyes..._

* * *

"—you alright?" A voice had said, Manic barely recognizing the voice. Said green hedgehog tried to swat the dancing points over his body with his right hand, getting a rather loud 'HEY' from his left. Edward's eye's finally shot open, realizing that he was just outside the entrance of the thieves' hideout. He had looked around a bit before finding the cause of the noise on the thief's left: Orgville Maurice Kintobor, whom had stepped back from Manic's arm radius and was carefully leaning back in. Manic could just see the large frame of Allegro behind the human-turned rat, but could not find a trace of the two kids that hanged around with the blue hedgehog.

"We have no time for waiting around, _Clasher_." Ovi growled, causing Manic to jump up in his skin. "I probably had sentenced your brother and your sister to be robotizised, and if we do not get going, I'm afraid that we may never be able to save them." The once-orange rat forcibly grabbed Manic's forearm, pulling harshly so that the once-green hedgehog was off of the ground. Once said hedgehog was on his own two feet, Ovi released his grip and started walking back to where Allegro was sitting, her face solemn as she eyed her rider.

"Wait, what? Did you just say that I have SIBLINGS?" The green thief questioned his once-human friend, running a bit to catch up to his now suddenly quicker partner in crime. "_When did he become so fast?_" the hedgehog questioned in his mind, no answer forth-coming to the lost thief. Said thief then noticed that Ovi was just about to get Allegro to lift-off without him, and he buckled his pace toward the jittering flying lizard.

* * *

"Sophia, please be a kind dear and _cooperate_ for your friend, here." The armoured wolf said to the former aristocrat, having brought out a pistol for her to see. It was similar in make to the purple armour that the bounty-hunter (Sonia had recognized the armour as standard Chaos-resistant body armour bought and used by crooks and crime lords), having the magazine slot/base a gold-like colour. He pointed the barrel at her once-rescuer, his jade-green eyes widening when he realized that both he and his sister were in a very, _very_ tight spot. In the blue-grey wolf's other hand, the hunter pulled out a very peculiar remote that had only one button: the two captured hedgehogs didn't notice the dial that the covered hand was holding on the remote. It was blue on the top and crème on the bottom, with the laser end being a strange orange—too similar to Ovi's own colouration to the both of them—as the wolf pressed the button to activate whatever it did. The light went straight for the orange rug; which then transformed in front of the two captured beings. The entire molecular structure shifted and formed into a burlier, almost _animalistic_ creature, with its left leg robotizised from the knee down, making both Nickolas and Elizabeth wonder if it were once an amputee. The build of the yellow-and-orange-furred creature was most certainly masculine, shredded ranger pants and good-condition ranger gloves were the monster's entire outfit. The being re-adjusted his Ringo-styled purple glass as soon as the transformation was complete, giving the wolf-bounty hunter a look of displeasure with cold-grey eyes.

"*Growl* I hate when you do that Sleet. It always makes me want to puke when you use the remote on me." The monster spoke, surprising the captive duo with his soft Australian accent. Said monster turned his attention to the two hedgehogs, growling a bit at something he was reflecting on. "You two look too much like your father it makes me sick! I'll be glad when Sypress gets you two executed publically!" the yellow-orange monster just gripped his burly hands into balls, and nearly drawn blood from squeezing them too hard. Nevertheless, the message got across to the two, with the young female gulping a bit as both hedgehogs' ears went down. "But..." he continued fondly, looking at Elizabeth with a much softer gaze. "Something's _are_ prettier on the other lawn, aren't they?"

The response he got was a look of disgust, a look at demanded that he die right there right now, and a face-palm from his own partner.

"Dingo! If there's one thing that hasn't gotten through your thick skull, then it's becoming infatuated with our damn payment!" the wolf—Sleet—shouted to his cohort, his nasally voice seemingly softened at the offense. "Now, will please pick up both Scourge and Sophia and TAKE THEM OUTSIDE!" Sleet yelled as he pointed his remote-holding hand back to the door where Sonic slid into, his outburst causing the two hedgehogs to futilely correct him on his proper names ('IT'S SONIC!' 'MY NAME IS SONIA!') As the burly being—Dingo—picked the two hedgehogs up by the backs of their clothing, careful to avoid the more troublesome spikes while still being quick about taking the two outside.

"Whatever you beef jerky's, you'll only be known as the two jewels that failed to escape from Sypress after you'll be executed publically!" He grey-blue wolf laughed evilly, his partner laughing a bit differently but just as dark to the two. Both bounty hunters walked the distance to the front of the mansion, where a peculiar, Goth-like human was waiting for them.

"Well, well. If it isn't the royal hin-ey-nesses: Prince Nickolas 'Sonic' and Princess Elizabeth 'Sonia' Soundbreaker. How nice it is to finally meet the two of you in person." The dark-haired, jean-and-leather-clad human said mockingly, finishing off with a sarcastic gentlemanly bow for the captured two. As said human rose, his steel-blue eyes turned just as dark as Sleet and Dingo's, turning toward the amour-clad wolf in a congratulatory manner. "Have you found any trace of their disease-infested brother?" he asked carefully, his baritone shaking with glee.

Sleet dashed his rising hopes with a frown and a shake of his head. "He probably went back to that infested place to see the damage Dingo's done to it. I haven't been able to trace any of the blue meat's friends. We'll need to get going as fast as we can before they arrive here." The armoured wolf continued.

The human bounty hunter could only nod at the information, turning toward the yellow-orange monster holding the two. "Get ready to transform again, you oversized paper-weight! We need you to transform into something that will hold these two together without them both bouncing around in the back!" He growled, his falsetto gone completely.

"Hunter! When I get my hands on you, you'll be eating them words!" Dingo growled back, his patience thinning with the human. Sleet quickly pulled out his remote to change the yellow-orange beast into what they wanted when they felt rather than heard the sound of a dragon roaring above them, along with a fainter sound of a disused propeller belonging to a biplane.

"FORGET THE TRANSORMATION! We need to run NOW!" Sleet yelled, pocketing his remote and grabbing Hunter by the forearm as the three bounty hunters bolted for their getaway van. They tried to outrun the gigantic beast before it could catch up, but unfortunately the dragon was a sound dragon; the fastest species of dragon in the land while also being the smallest. Its roar was enough to cause fissures onto the ground around the hunters, causing the three to lose their footing as the ground crumbled beneath them. The burly monster was the first to fall, losing his grip on the trio's bounty as he kissed the ground face-first. The two hedgehogs could do nothing as they were caught within inertia and gravity's hold, and barely managed to land properly once they finished descending a few feet away from the hunters that they were captured by. Both Sonic and Sonia barely had enough time to get them picked off of the ground (With Sonic struggling from the Chaos Inhibitor around his neck) before being covered in shadow. They both looked skyward to see the familiar shape of Nickolas' pet Allegro's underbelly, with the dragon awkwardly hovering lower in an attempt to grab them as quickly as possible.

Both Sonic and Sonia were pleased that Allegro carefully, but quickly, picked the both of them up and flew them out into the sky as the three bounty hunters reached their destination. They had not noticed that Sleet had thrown a tag at Allegro's leg to track them down for later.

* * *

It took far longer than anyone of the group of seven had expected to reach their destination, having noticed that both Nickolas and Elizabeth's physical and mental capabilities have been drastically reduced. The gang had neared the entrance of the forest after ten hours of travel, with Allegro stating to them she can't keep the size she had been using on a constant basis. When she carefully landed along with the red and white biplane, the first thing she did was transform back into her much tinier, and not as easy to ride on, pet form—releasing her grip on Sonic and Sonia so she wouldn't shrink them down with her. Both Manic and Ovi fall face-first into the ground as the once-cyan dragon did just that, groaning from the sting along their entire body.

Amy was the first to get out of the Tornado as its wheels touched the ground, causing Tails to pivot the plane fearfully. She rushed over to where her sweet-heart was, before slowing down when she realized how _dead_ he looked to the pink hedgehog. She crouched sadly as her fingers traced the Chaos Inhibitor collar around his neck, noticing that it seemed to glow brightly as Sonic got weaker. "What the heck is this thing?" Amy fearfully asked, pulling her hand away as the machine seemed to shock her. The area where Amy was once touching the collar changed to the hedgehog's own pink-quilled hue, before disappearing into the dark blue that is Sonic's own body colour.

"It's something called a Chaos Inhibitor." Sonia said weakly, turning everyone's attention towards the barely standing former aristocrat. "The wolf that caught us—Sleet—had said it was made to keep us quiet. I think it drains the amount of Chaos energy people have within their bodies to more 'humane' levels." She nearly toppled over on herself as the inhibitor took more energy from her body. Ovi rushed over to the sibling of Sonic to give the machine some of his energy and not leach off of Sonia's for a bit. "Thank you." She managed before resorting to gasping for air.

"Isn't Chaos energy the life force in which all beings lives on, though?" Manic pondered as he held Nickolas in his arms, allowing the machine to leach off of his energy for his big brother. Sonia nodded between gulps of air, having no more room to talk about things as the chaos inhibitor sucked more of her life into itself.

"Damn-it! They're not going to survive if we don't get them off!" The rat holding Sonia cursed a bit more under his breath, but nevertheless started to furiously pound on the machine with his bare hands for a few moments before grabbing a nearby rock as his makeshift hammer. Manic had started doing the exact same thing with Sonic's own, except the thief had brought out most of his thieving tools to cut open the bit where it joined onto the neck. Tails quickly ran for this tool box that was left in the compartment of the Tornado used for storage as his robotic toolbox tried to find the exact thing they required to break open the collars. Amy, unable to help her love knowing she would get in everyone's way, decided to go and get some help with Allegro. However, the pink hedgehog had not accounted for the light-green dragon's tiredness from keeping her stallion form for so long, and decided to sleep on Amy's shoulders as the girl frantically ran around the perimeter of the forest before going into it. She took a few steps in before slamming into another body. Amy fell to the ground butt first, her head spinning for a bit before recollected herself. "Now what was the—"Amy stopped mid-sentence as she looked up at the elder lynx before her. He was a tall lynx, having been working out for a long while to her it seemed. His fur was a grey-brown colour, with spots having more regular brown within them than his body as a whole. The being smiled sheepishly, looking down at her with his brown caring eyes.

"Now tell me Miss Rose," he male lynx spoke calmly, having a soothing but nearly honey-like voice that calmed the hedgehog right down. "Would you mind showing me where your friends are? I would like to train you all for your mission."


	12. Chapter 12

Sonic Underground Remix Chapter 12

Getting to Know You and I

* * *

"Erm... Who might you be?" Amy asked the muscled lynx, nervous and scared about the creature in front of her. To admit that she was terrified of the being in front of her was a massive understatement; her hands trembled furiously as she stared at the contours of the being's stomach, where she could almost notice each muscle move occasionally in humour. The lynx laughed at her nervousness, bending his knees a bit to see the pink hedgehog eye to eye.

"I really didn't mean to scare you. I am Gondor, the Oracle of Delphius' friend and your mentor for now. I'm only here because you guys are going to be facing many dangerous things, and you guys really need it. Now, where are the rest of your group, Miss. Rose?" the brown lynx, Gondor, asked the young hedgehog while comforting said hedgehog by giving her a quick hug. He had noticed the young dragon pet had started to wake up from its sleep, and quickly stepped away from the hedgehog girl before Allegro had coherent thought. "Can you lead me to them?" He asked kindly.

"But of course!" Amy said happily, realizing that this is greatly convenient. Maybe he could help out with their situation! "Just follow me!" Amy cheerfully said, grabbing the hovering hand that once held her body, and tried to pull Gondor toward the place that the rest of her friends were at, explaining what had happened to Sonic and Sonia.

* * *

It wasn't long after Amy left for help that Ovi had stopped using his make-shift hammer on the Chaos Collar around Sonia's petite neck and instead tried to pry the connecting part open. Manic had almost tried every version of his lock picks in a futile attempt to break Sonic out of his own collar (with a few picks having snapped when he tried to insert them into the key hole). Tails hovered a bit behind the green thief, handing the former street rat whatever tools the hedgehog and rat might need for the Chaos Collars. He sighed as the fox heard the now-familiar click of one of Manic's own lock picks breaking inside the collar lock, and the all too familiar quiet sound of said hedgehog muttering curses under his breath.

"Oh Chaos... We're getting nowhere on this." Manic sighed, his ears drooping with the realization that the other two hedgehogs will not be able to make it. The green hedgehog looked at his long-lost brother ready to tell him what he didn't want to hear, and Manic found himself regretting it. Nickolas was much paler than before the bubbly hedgehog had left: every single part of Sonic's body was drooping to the ground, and it had looked like the once-cheerfully upbeat guy had the exact same thought process as his brother. The once sparking green eyes were forced outside their dangerously closed curtains, barely looking at the thief beside the once-blue hedgehog to look at the pampered princess with the human turned rat.

Elizabeth 'Sonia' Windlemire was in the exact same condition as Sonic was, but her eyes were fully closed, making the purple aristocrat look as if she had died in the orange halfling's lap. Both rat and green hedgehog looked at each other before Ovi opened his mouth in the first time since they got to the forest's edge.

"Ovi, Manic..." Tails whined, now realizing the depth of the situation with his brother-bond and the pampered aristocrat. "Are we losing?" the two-tailed fox asked pitifully, fearing that the impossible for his friend (at least, to the fox) is going to happen soon. Nobody noticed the darkening of Ovi, Manic and Tails bodies all around as they discussed what was thought as the inevitable.

"We are _not_ giving up, not while they are still trapped." Ovi stated—more of a command, which irked Manic to no end. "This collar has to have some sort of pressure point that we haven't tried—"

"But it could suck us dry, too!" Edward interjected, not having any of Kintobor's new-found characterization. Just when did his favourite cop decide to be a condescending arse? "They're about to die from the amount that they've lost! And just about everything we've done is useless! We have no choice but to—"

"Now **that** doesn't sound like the Son of Skylocke." A much deeper voice interjected, cutting Edward's despair speech before it could root itself into Orgville and Miles. The sound of rustling leaves had indicated to the mainly coherent three that the much older, more macho, voice protruded from the forest. All of those not with Amy looked to see the pink hedgehog with a large, lynx that had greyish-brown fur, an muscled body, and caring brown eyes that had a look of surprise when said lynx had seen the state Sonic and Sonia were in. He rushes toward where Ovi and Sonia were first, kneeling down to allow the burly lynx to see how bad the situation was.

"It's a good thing you got me when you did Miss. Rose." The lynx said while tracing the contours of the Chaos Collar around Sonia's neck, before finding the exact location of where the collar joined together. "With the level of Chaos energy you guys have right now, I'd doubt any of you would have lived for three days with this." The Lynx's hand crushed the collar; the once connected wires sparking as the electricity inside no longer had a route to travel through. As the now destroyed collar was removed, the entire colour that was on the collar returned to the pampered hedgehog before the lynx removed the shell of the contraption completely. The burly lynx then went on to do the exact same with Sonic's own, using the exact same method to destroy the machine.

When he was doing that, Sonia had finally opened her now live sky blue eyes to the sight of Manic, Ovi, Tails and Amy having a small amount of tears dripping over their faces. She smiled sadly as she started to remember the reason why the four above her were crying. Elizabeth bolted upright attempting to stand, when her body disagreed and nearly made her face-plant onto the cold ground. "What happened to Sonic?" She yelled frantically.

Miles was nearly thrown off Sonia's right arm when she saw the burly lynx hovering over Sonic's body, and attempted to explain quickly. "It's not what you think! The lynx dude helped get the Chaos Collar off of your neck, and is doing the same with Sonic!" his explaining was useless however, when the young fox felt a painful stab where his abdomen was, causing an unconscious reaction that made the two-tailed being let go of the storming princess. Miles' knees had caught him as his body curled up from the impact, having brief flashbacks to when he was bullied long ago. "_And I thought I was over that..._" Tails thought bitterly.

Orgville and Manic had tried to recapture the infuriated princess from disturbing the lynx, when the sound of Sonic bolting up and tackling all three beings to the ground at super-sonic speed caught them off-guard.

Sonic chuckled as he pulled himself off of Manic, Sonia and Ovi; a smile graced his muzzle as he helped up his siblings to stand. Orgville lifted himself off of the ground, a hint of a smile twitching on the end of his lips as he looked at Nickolas' own cocky smirk. It wasn't until Elizabeth had touched his shoulder that Ovi broke contact with his former childhood friend, and looked at the female that Nickolas had said was his triplet. He noticed a large amount of similarities between Sonic and Sonia, including the triangular-shaped ears that both the blue and green hedgehogs had. All six Animayans including Allegro were taken out of their stupor when the grey lynx coughed into his hand, gaining everyone's attention.

"Now then, why don't we continue with the introductions?" Gondor continued, relieved at the time it took to get the six animal's attention.

* * *

It almost seemed to those that have not exercised in a long while that the forest itself went on forever, with the many twists and turns and unchecked growth forced the five animals (Ovi's own body, unlike his mind, collapsed after the first few hours from lack of food and exhaustion. Gondor is currently carrying him via piggyback) Allegro and Gondor themselves seemed to be in a much better mood than even Sonic himself, with the burly lynx having started a cheery tune when Sonia finally caved in her still relatively old habits.

"I'VE HAD IT WITH THIS DREADFUL FOREST! It's icky, there are things that are unattractive, and I HAVE NOT HAD A SHOWER FOR TWO DAYS!" A swarm of multiple types of birds flew out of the treetops and into the sky at the last outburst, not wanting to face the wrath of whatever made that sound to begin with. Tails and Manic had shared a sigh of exhaustion, their eyes rimmed with a dark colour from lack of sleep lately. Amy herself was just at her breaking point, her arm twitching violently as she tried to keep her rage in check. Ovi looked at the scene in both disgust and tiredness, wishing that he could join in the next conversation. Sonic was just as ticked as his pink friend, but instead of holding his anger; the blue hedgehog dished it out.

"Alright Spiny Annoying Princess, this has got to STOP." Nickolas said angrily, jamming his finger against Elizabeth's chest, "I'm tired of this as well, and we haven't made much progress with your whining. Either SHUT UP or GO BACK. Your choice." That smile was sarcastic to everyone, but the purple hedgehog had the gall to hold her own against her 'brother'.

"First of all: _don't_ call me that. Second off: Who the hell do you think you **are**? My brother?"

"YES!" That did it for Sonia, looking at this obvious madman in front of her. The purple hedgehog tried to take a few steps back from her supposed 'brother'. Her sky-blue eyes looked toward the thief that had helped her and Miss. Rose escape Harrion City, his own exasperation and shock apparent on his face. Sonic turned toward the green thief as well, his anger still aflame inside. "AND _HE_ IS OUR BROTHER!" The blue hedgehog pointed at Manic before storming off where Gondor went with Ovi, Allegro staying with all those shocked into place by Nickolas' outburst.

Tails stared at the scene for a few seconds before following his brother-bond, calling out the blue hedgehog's name continuously as he faded into the overgrowth. The pink hedgehog had also looked at the scene in front of her with fear and confusion, but she took a bit longer for her mind to properly work before Amy finally snapped out of her thoughts, attempting to join Sonic and Tails ahead of the shocked hedgehogs and indifferent dragon-pet. Noticing that the two kids were no longer there with them, Sonia and Manic chased the rest of the group to the training grounds.

Still, as they caught up with the rest, everyone save for Ovi stayed away from the fuming blue hedgehog just ahead. The newly discovered siblings of said hedgehog had spaced themselves a bit further apart, extremely uncomfortable with the new information they were given. Both Tails and Amy had no idea how to comfort or help both Elizabeth and Edward, having never known the both of them up until a few days ago. Tails had walked on a bit ahead of the three hedgehogs, having some confusion from the whole situation. The pink hedgehog tried her best to make conversation with the two older hedgehogs, but neither had bothered even looking at the poor girl.

The two-tailed fox had decided to make conversation with Gondor instead, felling a bit upset about the whole situation behind him. "Gondor, are you sure that the Tornado is alright outside the forest?" Miles asked, having doubts already about coming with the group. But he couldn't take Amy with him, as she would try to force them back with Sonic and the others... and he remembered that the fox had Amy in the Tornado with him when they had left Harrion City.

"Yes it is Tails: in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some of my friends had made sure it's kept safe with them." The giant lynx replied, not looking back as he heard Tails' audible gasp of fear over the machine. The grey being was sure that it hadn't convinced the yellow fox enough to calm the boy down, so he decided to drop the entire conversation entirely. "Ah, here we are! This is the exact place you guys will be staying to prepare or what's coming after you!"

The place Gondor was talking about was an expansive clearing, which was covered with grass and dirt. Most of the trees that were the forest seemed to circle around the cliff-side, the rays of early morning seemed to blind the finally resting group of woodland animals. Gondor took the chance to rest the sleeping Ovi onto the ground where the rest of Sonic's friends would be probably resting. Sonia took the chance to try her best to find the best place to sleep on that didn't have a lot of dirt or bugs. Everyone else just slept throughout, having been too tired to convince themselves to start anything. Gondor decided to go into his hidden hut, having realized how much he over-estimated the to-be Sonic Underground.

* * *

_In another location..._

The Lord Sypress was more than upset at the info given over the screen. He was terrified about what was going to happen.

"WHERE ARE THEY!" The tin tyrant screeched to the monitor, which showed Sleet Dingo and Hunter on screen. All three had looked beaten, some minor bruising around specific locations, and was that grass stains over Sleet's body armour? "You SAID you'd have them as soon as possible!"

"H-hold on, My Lord!" the nasally voice of Sleet cackled over the intercom, the blue-grey wolf had hidden behind Dingo as he spoke, "We didn't accommodate for the dragon that came by suddenly—"

"Wait, what _type_ of dragon was it?" the Lord asked, suddenly curious about the 'imposters' that had been on the cameras when Sypress' other soldiers were looking through the cameras. If the kids had _that_ dragon that was supposed to be raised by the royal family for protection...then something _bad_ was about to happen...

"Sound Dragon, it seemed it was a Chaos powered individual like the bratty kids, who had the exact same scent as Skylocke himself... along with Aleena's." Hunter said this time, having not spoken until now. "We've also tagged the damn thing. Shall we pursue?"

Sypress had to turn himself away from the screen, looking at the council behind him. The form of both Dr. Eggman and Hope Kintobor could be recognized, but the rest were completely unrecognizable besides a moth-like robot opposite the genius man-child. It took a bit for the tyrant to finally answer the bounty hunter. "Take one of Aperis' commanding shuttle, she'll be over with the ship as soon as she can." Sypress cut the connection as soon as the orders were handed out. A giant moth-like robot rose from its spot on the side of Dr. Eggman that didn't have Hope, it's optic receptors gleamed of madness and of the dimly-lit room around it. The robot's body is covered in brown spray-paint, with the metallic wings being a darker colour. It bowed at the Lord mechanically before leaving the room.

* * *

It took a while for Nickolas to awaken, having not slept properly for the past few days. He slowly opened his eyes as his mind started kicking back into gear. The blue hedgehog looked around the area, not realizing that he wasn't at Uncle Chuck's house. It took him a few seconds more to remember what exactly had happened lately that made Sonic freak at the sight of Ovi right next to him. As his memories came back to him, Sonic groaned for what was going to be in store for him and the rest of his friends. The newly formed Sonic Underground had been training, understanding their powers and how to properly control them. Sonic had a lot of trouble trying to get him to learn to slow down, which had caused massive headaches for the being after whacking into the same tree many times. _And all for just a dang _rock, Sonic thought to himself.

Sonic couldn't help but look at the once-human in slight sorrow; for while his former friend hadn't gotten into having more food for himself, he had gained a bit of weight ever since they had started their gruesome (to the Sonic Underground) training. Sonia had a lot of trouble at the start due to her low tolerance of dirt, as she had ended up exactly on the same position as Sonic had when learning the spin dash, in which the blue hedgehog didn't get a good grip on his legs and had trouble figuring out how to handle the speed before landing head-first into the ground. Elizabeth's 'super spin' had been unbalanced when she first tried it, and the purple hedgehog couldn't rebalance herself in the time her feet had caused her to land squarely onto her back.

Miles and Amy had less trouble than the hedgehog siblings, having to learn on their bodies more than abilities they never actually used in their life. Tails had trouble adjusting with the abilities he could now use to his advantage: with his main power in how he handled fighting with his tails. It wasn't until much later that the two-tailed fox learned that he could do a spin similar to Sonia, though with his own tails rather than his arms, which had caused the yellow fox to turn the attack into a deadly dance. Amy had also had some trouble learning the basics of acrobatics, but she had eventually managed to be on par with Elizabeth, whom had surprised Ovi by keeping up with their martial arts training.

The only two that didn't seem to be joining the group in training their abilities were Manic and Allegro, the both of whom had found that they were way behind compared to the others. Gondor had tried to convince them both that they would have powers far stronger than they could ever imagine, but the long looks on both of their faces had indicated that the both of them weren't convinced. Nevertheless, Manic had been learning on using his drumsticks as boomerangs, while Allegro had been training on controlling her size shifting. All in all, the Sonic Underground had been training for the longest while, with each day blending into a week, then more weeks, before eventually turning into a month. The blue hedgehog sat himself up from his sleeping spot, having been looking down at his—now thinner—stomach, before looking up toward where his sister and brother were.

"_It feels odd...calling Sonia and Manic that._" Sonic thought sadly, realizing how long he's known the other two hedgehogs. None of them had even started on the process of getting along: Sonic had loads of trouble listening to Sonia due to how much she talked, and was very much against Manic's lack of hygiene. Manic didn't like Sonic's cockiness and Sonia's pampered attitude. And Sonia hated Sonic's care-free attitude and Manic's own surfer lingo. The only thing that kept the trio of hedgehogs from killing each-other was Tails, Amy, Ovi, Allegro and Gondor. This was a good thing, if what the Oracle of Delphius had told the truth about what was going to happen to them. "_Though, it seemed cliché..._" Sonic added, his ears twitching at the sound of large footsteps coming closer to his location. The blue hedgehog stood up, turning to see the burly lynx and Allegro moving towards him. The green dragon hovered toward the blue hedgehog, landing herself on top of Nickolas' shoulders and lying down on them. She kept one eye on Gondor however, having lost her trust with the large lynx a while ago.

"I'm glad you're awake, Son of Skylocke." The lynx said, "It's time for all of us to part, but I'm waiting for my friend to come by. He's been taking care of your plane for a while, and has been getting a kick out of it." He winked at the last part, causing Sonic to look a bit worried. But before the blue hedgehog could voice his opinions, the sound of a flying machine caused the rest of the Underground to wake up tiredly.

"What's that noise...?" Sonia and Amy muttered at the exact same time, having just woken up. Manic and Ovi yawned audibly as they both got up. Tails still looked half-asleep as he got up, before he realized what the sound he heard was.

"Wait, is that-?" Tails didn't get the chance to finish his sentence, as the group of animals heard the sound of metal blasting through wood and plants. The Sonic Underground (along with Gondor) turned toward the sky, where they saw a gigantic warship, designed after a large manta-ray. The underbelly of the hovercraft seemed to be a dark yellow to them. As the machine seemed to hover above them, a gruff, echo-y voice came from the aircraft itself, startling Sonic and Sonia as they recognized the voice.

"HAND OVER THE HEDGEHOGS NOW, ELSE YOU SHALL BE DESTROYED ALONG WITH THIS DAMNED FOREST." The voice of Hunter rang in everyone's ears, with the sounds of Dingo and Sleet laughing manically along with Hunter piercing the air just after.

"Well, it looks like a great time to play with the bullies—" Nickolas was stopped by Gondor, whom shook his head at them.

"Don't worry about them too much; the forest knows how to protect itself." As the lynx said that, the forest's trees seemed to come to life, though only Sonia and Ovi noticed that only certain plants were attacking the warship out of the sky. The screams of the Hunters was evident when the plants tried to wrap themselves onto the ship, before being canceled out by a large explosion caused by an odd figure just before Hunter could pull on the controls to escape. The figure landed right by the Sonic Underground, revealing itself as a dinosaur-like creature, with an almost animalistic look to it. It was taller than Ovi's human form, with cyan coloured hair that looked trimmed and neat despite the animosity in its golden yellow eyes. The dino-plant (as the Sonic Underground have taken to call it in their head) also had lighter than cyan skin, which surprised the Underground as they stared at the being in front of them. "_It looks like... a plant's leaf!_" the newly formed Sonic Underground thought as the being walked toward Sonic.

"Hello there, Children of the Winds. I am Sapling, one of the many protectors of this beautiful forest." The being, Sapling, said in a faint but honey-like male voice. "I am here to give you guys this for completing your training with Gondor." His hand went into the fanny pack none of the group noticed that Sapling had on him, before pulling out a rolled up parchment to give to Sonic. The blue hedgehog thanked the plant-being, before asking his friends and family to move closer to him. As he opened the scroll, Sonic, Sonia, Manic and Allegro started to disappear right in front of the parchment, without the rest of the Underground under the enchantment. When the triplets with Allegro completely disappeared, Tails and Amy started to freak out before Sapling grabbed the two children, calmly looking at Ovi in the eye.

"Don't worry about the Children of the Winds: they are safe in another location entirely." Sapling said, before grabbing the hands of the two twelve-year olds. "They'll just be learning something entirely different from you guys. Right now, we need to go to our destination for your own training." The dinosaur-plant gently leads the trio away from Gondor, who waved goodbye to Ovi as the other half of Sonic Underground walked to their next destination.

* * *

A bright light flashed in between the snow-covered area of the mountains, far away from the Galagar Forest, in front of the Resistance's only unknown ally monastery. The giant scared building seemed to be floating, in which its beauty from the light blue colour and almost golden orange roofing shined brightly from both the sun and the light from the forests. When the light dissipated, it revealed Sonic, Sonia and Manic along with Allegro onto the entrance of the Floating Monastery. All three hedgehogs landed on their rears, each trying to get up when a monk came up to them. The monk wore orange robes, and covered his face with a hood as he gestured his hand toward them. He gestured toward the hedgehogs and dragon, which had all but gotten up from the ground. The monk then went a few metres ahead of the four animals, not sparing a glance as he knew that the Children of the Winds would follow them.

"Huh...looks trippy." Manic said as they saw the monk climb the invisible staircase toward the Floating Monastery, and followed the monk toward their rooms inside. The room itself was barely anything to write home about: having only three beds with thick orange sheets on top with cartoonish white pillows. A bed of straw was pushed into another corner for Allegro, whom had finally gotten off of Nickolas' shoulders to go to sleep.

"This is where you'll be staying for the time." The monk started, surprising the three hedgehogs and dragon. "Here, you'll learn about the power of your medallions... as well as your powers of the very uncontrollable winds themselves." He said, before removing the hood to reveal a face of a Siberian husky, with monochrome eyes and dirty-white fur. His right eye was a brilliant shade of brown, while the left was pure white. "Allegro is joining you because she also has powers far beyond what you imagine." The husky monk continued, having built up some magic in his fingers before shooting them into the medallions. The medallions responded by absorbing the magical beam and glowing brighter, causing the Aleena Triplets to be blinded by the light.

"Go ahead, activate them." The husky said as the hedgehogs examined their medallions. "They only work when you three are in perfect harmony however, so choose your words carefully." The monk's words were ignored, however, as the medallions changed into the exact shape that they are representative of: Sonic's own medallion changed into a single necked guitar, Sonia's into a portable electronic piano, and Manic's into a drum-set. Allegro was intrigued by the sudden change of the medallions and had also not paid attention to the husky monk as well. The four kids looked the instruments fondly, having never seen magic before.

"For your first test, you'll need to figure out how to work together as a team. For the power of harmony will not work if any of you are arguing." The husky monk then threw a blast of magic toward the triplet hedgehogs and dragon, transporting them into a cage with only a skylight for light. An old fashioned door was to the right of Manic, which went unnoticed when Sonic, Sonia and Manic had heard a noise that came from in front of them. They looked straight ahead, in which they found the source of the noise: a giant gapping maw of a beast ten times the size of the triplets, it's pink and blue colouring hardly diminishing the terrifying structure of the beast itself.

A large scream fitted into the room along the roar of dragon and monster, a sonic boom and a beam of light coming out of the green dragon's own maw. Nickolas attempted to attack the beast despite Elizabeth's protests and Edward's attempts to get the blue hedgehog's attention. The beast swatted the still firing dragon away from everyone else, knocking her out as soon as Allegro hit the wall. The purple hedgehog attempted to attack the beast that had grabbed her as well. Both the hedgehog's were about to be eaten—

"YOU'VE FAILED THE MISSION." The husky monk coldly said to each and every one in their mind as the world went black. When everyone opened their eyes once again, they were back inside the room that they were given just before all four started their training. "All of you behaved rashly, with the least rash being Manic for figuring out what was needed to be done." The white husky's eyes softened at that moment, before retaining the original upset look for the other three. "Both Sonia and Allegro, while you reacted in anger and fear, you both had great ideas." He finally turned toward Sonic, and the glare from the monk was the harshest yet; causing the now calm hedgehog to flinch away like a child who was caught with the cookie jar. "HOWEVER..."

"I know... if I hadn't decided on acting when I had, we would have—"

"Passed it completely. Your boldness, your inability to see what's ahead of you and your lack of teamwork will bring everyone down along with you! Do you seriously want that?" The husky asked Sonic, before a shout from Sonia caused the monk to divert his attention away from the hedgehog.

"So what if he's a tunnel-minded moron? Sonic is the bravest person I've ever met!" the purple hedgehog said angrily; the white husky looked at the younger hedgehog in confusion before speaking once again.

"Bravery doesn't cut for what you brother lacks, daughter of Skylocke—"

"And I'm sure our old man did some very positive things back when he was our age?" Manic interjected, having realized that might not have been the right words and corrected himself. "Besides, he went in to save Sonia from being robotisized. If that's not worth any brownie points, then I don't know what is Dude." Both hedgehogs got up and walked toward where Sonic was, each trying to shield their older sibling from any further criticism.

"Ah, so you all defend your brother?" despite the situation, the monk had to smile at the scene. If this could happen all the time, then there would be no worries for the future.

"You guys really mean that?" the hedgehog in question couldn't believe what was happening to him. Even Allegro seemed to agree that Sonic needed support, her tongue hanging outside her mouth like a dog's as she nodded.

"Well then, I guess you have passed in some way, Prince Nickolas. I believe training will start up once again in the morning. Or maybe, even sooner than that..." the husky left the room through the curtained door.

Sonic took this chance to tackle-hug his siblings, relieved that they had stood up for them. "Thanks you two." Sonic said calmly as they returned the hug, both dragon and magical instruments forgotten.


	13. Chapter 12 Part B

Sonic Underground Remix Chapter 12 Part B

* * *

**A/N:** this is the last chapter for a good while, as I'm getting work done for college right now. I wish I can continue on this without hesitation, but it and Special Hope will have to wait until I've finished for the Term.

I apologize if the wait is longer than it should.

* * *

Within the Galagar Forest, there was a village made of bricks and dirt that housed many dinosaur plants within the forest's canopy, many of different colours and shapes of different species interacting with one another. While still following Sapling to the tallest tree in the village, Ovi Tails and Amy were shocked about the amount of people that they have never seen before. All three allowed themselves to be lead toward the leader of these Dino-plants: the fabled Dark Oak, terroriser of the beings who try to destroy the natural habitat of plant life by using the very plants to fight back. It was said that he and another Dino-plant, White Sakura, had two children who had the ability to command every type of plant in the vicinity—no matter what species they belong to, the children would control the roots of the plants that they so desired. As Sapling and the trio neared the middle of the town itself, all of the dino-plants stopped looking curiously, and got on with their lives. Sapling then bowed to the gigantic figure in front of them, announcing their presence to the leader.

The leader in question had a long, thick trunk-like body, his head having horns that were oak branches hanging off of its head. Most of the colour of Dark Oak was an almost black, with purple colouring thrown in for good distinction between his leaf-like hair and of the white cloth around his body. The being thought to be Dark Oak had his back toward Sapling and his guests, and when he turned away from another dino-plant that he had been talking to, his eyes shone of a brilliant sapphire as the leader of the plant-dinosaurs scrutinized what he had been looking at. "Are these the kids our people have to look after?" He asked Sapling, having realized how undermined he was for the kids.

"They are much stronger than they appear to be, Dark Oak." The blue dinosaur said to Dark Oak, when a green female dinosaur plant came into the room. Her skin was the exact same as her green hair, making the child seem to be more plant-like than any of the other people around there. She wears a darker green trench coat with a white petal skirt, the coat framed by yellow straps and cuffs. Her own sapphire blue eyes sparkled as she looked at Tails, her greenish yellow gardening boots shuffling with the rest of her legs as she stared at the fox and his friends before her. "I'm afraid that the Oracle may have not told the truth about whom we were going to get."

"No, I probably assumed that the Children of the Winds were the ones that we were going to get. The Oracle of Delphius has a horrible habit of dodging direct questions with vague answers." The darker coloured leader said to the sky blue plant in front of him, before turning to the three animals behind Sapling. "I apologize for my surprise, we were expecting—"

"Sonic, Manic, and Sonia, am I right?" Ovi gritted his teeth, spitting out the rhetorical question to what he considered an ungrateful man. How _dare_ this dinosaur with a plant appearance consider he inferior to—

Wait a sec, what the _hell_? Where did this negative thought process come from? The orange rat looked at Amy and Tails, taking a few steps back as he realized what he had said. Both gaped at the former with confusion and hidden query, the fox's tails still in shock and disbelief. Amy slowly reached out her hand to her near-adult friend, pulling back when said friend flinched as it reached his personal bubble.

"W-wait!" the green Seedrian (Ovi didn't know what else to call the creature besides 'dinosaur plant' all the time) said, taking a few steps forward the rat as she recognized something. "Have you seen an oddly-coloured seed? One that seems to—"

"Suck the life around it into itself? Y-yes." Ovi took another step backwards as the girl kept moving toward him. The green plant turned toward Dark Oak and looked at the elder with a harsh glare before speaking.

"This boy has been affected by the very seeds that brother was making before you kicked him out. Who knows what else he's made outside of our watch?"

"...We'll have to remove the seed before any training could begin. We cannot have this thing spread to the others." The darker oak dinosaur sighed, before ordering his people to get Ovi over toward the hospital room. The orange rat struggled a bit before submitting to the guard's rough hands and pulled him away from the throne room—if the 'hall' could be called that—for further investigation.

"We should go with him—"

"My young child, you are lucky that it only started when you all had left Harrion." Dark Oak said suddenly, causing the two animals to turn toward the darkly coloured creature. "The creator of that seed was cruel and unkind, and I had no choice but to exile him into another forest, one as frightful as the Suicide Forests in Hell." The older dinosaur sauntered to the front of Amy and Tails, whom had both turned their attention to him as he continued, "I had been blind by the belief that he would become the greatest leader that I never got to be, while my wife and child had both seen the madness that rolled off of him in watery waves." He looked downward as the long dried tears threatened to fall, though Oak's head was turned away from the young children.

"Was he... your son?" Miles had to ask, having wondered most of his life what his parents were like. He couldn't understand how a parent would downright consider abandoning their child for any reason whatsoever. Though if Tails had to guess from his odd biology...

"An odd guess for one who wanted to know... But yes, that child was my son." Dark Oak tiredly said, wiping the small amount of tears that pooled out of his betraying eyes and onto his face.

* * *

The road to the location was short, revealing a rather large oak tree in front of the dinosaur guards that had been outfitted into a house. The large knots were circular windows, and the front door looked like it was made out of discarded metal. The young Seedrian girl, along with the guards escorted the young rat toward an oddly designed room, one that contained books upon books of medical research and tools. The room was outfitted to be a pharmaceutical laboratory, with medicine cabinets on the far end of the tree-house, a small desk near the entrance to the room along with an operating table and equipment in another part of the room.

"Please sir, can you sit yourself on the table over there? We need to see where it is on your body..." the green-leafed girl said to Ovi, her hands glowing as the rat set himself down on the operating table as instructed. "I'll be looking at your chest right now, as it seems that the parasite is concentrated there." Ovi pulled his coat up, revealing the peach diamond pattern on his rib-showing chest. He looked sadly at the green dinosaur plant's blue eyes, her own showing a similar expression as they looked onto the parasite that burrowed where the orange rat's heart was.

"This parasite is usually found in my people, but someone found a way to engineer it so that it could control anyone outside of our tribe. It buries its roots into five different sections of the body: the arms, the legs, and the head, with the main center of the parasite burrowing itself into the heart for nutrients." The green-leafed child said to the lying rat as he sat up to remove the swallow-tail jacket he wore over his chest. Once the article of clothing was removed, the female dinosaur-plant took a glance at his diamond-shaped chest, tracing the amount of bones that showed for her only. Luckily, the head of the parasite was distracting enough for the girl to forget about the shape the young rat was in: instead of regular peach skin covering where the sternum and the heart itself would be located, sickly green surrounded the middle of Ovi's chest. A circular object was centered within the middle of the discoloured area, an 'eye' covered by leaf-like 'eyelids' protruded on top of the skin. It moved it's 'eyelids' away from the 'eye', revealing a black sphere within the middle of the 'eyeball'.

"It looks like it's still in the early stages of its life cycle. It wouldn't be on the outside of the skin if it was in its later stages." The plant-dino sighed as she said this; a small smile graced her lips (if Ovi could see that she had any before he lay back down after removing his favourite jacket) before disappearing entirely. Looking into the orange rat's own brown eyes, she listed exactly what the doctor was going to do about the parasite before placing the oddly shaped anesthesia mask onto his elongated muzzle, causing the former human to drift completely into unconsciousness.

* * *

It had been at least ten hours since the surgery began that both young children had heard any news about Orgville Maurice Kintobor, with the green plant-dinosaur introducing herself as Cherry of the Cherry Blossoms. She then explained to the two what her relationship was with her family: her mother (Herita of the Cherry Blossoms) had long since died and turned her remains into a tree: which was customary for their people as they were part-plant. Her father was Dark Oak, the very tribal leader the trio were talking to earlier, whom was originally named Luke of the Wise Oaks at birth. But the young plant-dinosaur couldn't seem to explain her brother to them; as the former Clark of the Cherry Blossoms was considered dead to the tribal community, Cherry couldn't control her tears as she spoke about what he had done to their people before being permanently banished.

"The parasite that my brother cultivated was a very disastrous one, similar but not quite to what the humans call the 'Ebola Virus'." Cherry attempted to say through her sobbing, "A-actually, now that I think about it, it was more like those parasitic fungi that controlled the insects from the inside out." She tried to calm herself down as soon as she said that, though her breaths came into her body at a rapid pace. "It would use our own hearts as its nutrient supplement, digging its roots into the chambers to feast on whatever was in the blood. It would then steady itself onto the heart by wrapping vines around it, which it would then go on to phase two of its life cycle." Cherry's heart finally came to a slow, as did the pacing of her lungs, but her blue eyes still avoided contact with the yellow fox and his pink-quilled friend.

"Phase Two?" Tails had to ask, suddenly drawing conclusions from what the green girl was saying to them. If this 'parasite' was similar to the fungi that would control the nervous system of insects...Would it be possible that whoever found Clark would use it to manipulate an entire population?

Cherry continued, not noticing—or was it ignoring?—Tails' curiosity on the subject matter. "Phase Two is when the vines on the back of the heart creep into the spinal cord, reaching into other parts of the body for control of the host. Then, it would bide it's time until it was ready to release its seeds: in by which the entire host body is forced to help give the parasitic plant the nutrients it needed to get to that point." Amy had to gently bring Cherry into her arms just to comfort the young girl, who had started crying the moment she finished that sentence. When the tremors subsided, Cherry continued on explaining what the parasite did. "It would then force the host to move towards where there are a lot of people, so that its children could continue the life cycle in entirely different bodies. When both the host and the parasite are at the location, the parasite completely ruptures the body, causing mass hemorrhaging and killing the host, releasing the spores containing the seeds as it does...A few of my friends died because of its dangerous properties. We had assumed that it went extinct when we came to this planet, but it's obvious that it had survived…" the young Seedrian girl absolutely lost it then, remembering her friends and family that had fallen to the virus itself.

Amy tried her best to comfort the cherry blossom in her bout of sadness, while Tails took the chance to see the former good friend of Sonic that the young fox never bothered to talk to until recently. Looking around in the hospital room, Tails finally found the older rat in the recovery room. Bound to many machines that the young fox could never identify off the top of his head, Miles attempted to speak to the sleeping human-turned-rat. "We heard about the parasite that attempted to control you." He started, his tails twitching in anxiety and fear about what would happen. "It must have been scary what it brought into your mind, especially now that it may relapse and take over again…" the doctors couldn't remove the roots inside the spinal cord and brain without irreversibly damaging Ovi's total coherence in thought process and movement: it would have left him as a complete vegetable at worst, the loss of feeling in everything at best (Tails wasn't too sure if it was accurate, but there _was_ a reason as to why these doctors were taking precautions about it). Looking around to find something to sit on, the yellow fox hadn't noticed that Ovi was beginning to awaken once again.

The orange rat sat up, a faraway look of melancholy in his brown eyes as he searched the hospital room. Looking about, the former human could barely recognize who was in the room with him until he realized that the oddly shaped blob was yellow. "T-tails?" he asked quietly, not sure if he was imagining what he saw and heard in his sleep. The voice that came out of his mouth—or was it muzzle now?—was raspy and sore from disuse. How long had he been operated on?

The fox in question barely noticed the voice that protruded from the older rat's muzzle, but had turned toward the bed Ovi was being kept on while looking for something to sit on. "You're awake?" Tails asked, a bit surprised that Orgville was even up at all. "How do you feel?" the fox knew that this question was a bit on the blind side, as it was obvious that the orange rat was still drowsy from the operation. Nevertheless, Tails had to know if Ovi was going to make a full pledged recovery from the operation.

The answer Miles was expecting was much different than what was said by Ovi right at that moment. "I feel like a complete idiot, Tails." He started, raspy voice creaking at certain syllables. "I don't remember a lot of things I said to _everyone_ before that parasite was removed from my body… But I know that whatever I had believed in was wrong." His hands clenched into fists as the orange rat gripped the cloth he was under in anger. "That _thing_… made me believe that everyone around me was wrong, while I was right. An absolutely selfish belief that the parasite made me think narrow-mindedly. It made me blind to everyone but myself…" he was rambling now, his entire arms were shaking in disgust and self-hatred just before he dove and grabbed the young fox in front of him. "I won't let the past rob us of the future anymore. And I won't try to hurt your feelings ever again." Ovi released the hug he pulled Tails into, smiling a bit as he looked into his former friend's blue eyes.

"Erm… I think you need to sleep, Ovi." The fox shattered the silence, confused and downright unsure of what had just happened. Was Ovi high or something? Yet as he attempted to leave, the two-tailed fox was pulled into another tight embrace by the older human-turned-rat before noticing that this embrace was much weaker than the previous one. Miles' head turned toward the face of Orgville, whom had fallen asleep as soon as he pulled Tails again into a hug. Softly smiling despite the confusion he had earlier, the brother-bond of Sonic put the orange friend back into the sleeping position, making sure to turn off the lights as he went off in search of Amy and Cherry; as they were no longer where they were when the fox-kit left them.

* * *

Time passed before the attempt to train went underway, as the 17-year old rat had to recover from his surgery. A few weeks later, the trio that arrived at the forest were training on their own, practicing the little abilities they would need while spending time with the Sonic Underground: Ovi was going through the stances of spears and nagita, Amy was practicing with her newly-made Piko-Piko hammer, and Tails was busy fixing up his newly made barrel cannon when Cherry came running by, out of breath and looking around herself quickly. Did she think that she was being followed?

"I'm sorry to ask you of this before you start the training," Cherry started, her head twitching at every movement. "But can I join you guys?" she looked desperately at the three friends, her hands clenched in hope. Only Amy seemed to know that the question was coming as both Tails and Ovi's face-faulted at the question. All three bright coloured animals turned toward each other, not exactly sure if they _want _to bring the young daughter of Dark Oak with them.

"I want to bring Cherry along." Amy spoke out first, knowing that her choice would be discouraged by the two males.

"Actually, I was just going to ask you guys that…" Tails spoke out then, his eyes widened at the pink hedgehog's suggestion.

"…I didn't think you wanted to get to know this girl, Tails." Ovi cheekily said, a sneaky grin coming onto his face as he patted the two-tailed brother of Sonic. The orange rat's smile wavered as he realized what left his muzzle, quickly turning away from the other two as both Amy and Tails looked at the former human curiously. Clearing his throat of the embarrassment, Orgville continued. "Well, I know that we need to help her family if we're going to go through this…" The rat's brown eyes, still covered by the tinted vision correctors on his muzzle, looked back toward the young girl in question. Ever since hearing the story of the green Seedrian's story from the only female of the group, Ovi wished to take the young girl along with them on their 'adventure' with the other half of the Sonic Underground.

"So it's settled." Amy sighed in relief at their agreement. The trio turned around to address the young girl, whom they found to have crept toward the group while they were talking about her. Cherry's eyes were widened in delight at the trio's agreement; the more leafy parts of her body seemed to shift excitedly with the breeze around the field.

"Thank you…" The shy girl said, a formation of tears were evident in her eyes. But before she could continue, the sound of the Seedrian trainer coming toward the three friends distracted her into running off. Ovi turned toward to the trainers assigned to himself, Amy and Tails for the next few months.

The Seedrians were similarly coloured—each one were a bright orange with red rosebuds as their 'ears'. Though they had similar shapes, the three had radically different styles of clothing from one another: the one on the left had worn traditional gear made for fighting—which was a brown toga with baggy pants and no shoes. The other two wore black shoes on their feet, carrying a rather large wooden jewelry box with a single lock. The two carrying the box stopped right in front of the trio while the trainer went in front of the box.

"I see you guys are ready to work." The Seedrian in fighters garb said a smirk evident on her face. "I'm Ops, the medic of our little place." The fighter—Ops—explained, showing her sky-blue eyes to the trio. "This box contains the medallions that you'll use in this journey you'll be taking with the Royal Triplets, each respond to who you truly are in your hearts." The trainer shooed the other two Seedrians aside, taking the chest in hand. She pulled out a rusted key, propping it into the keyhole and turning it open. Inside the box was three medallions as said, one that looks like a bass glowed a dark orange as the human-turned rat went toward it unconsciously. Another was a beautiful microphone-shaped medallion that had ribbons on it, causing Amy to draw herself toward it even though it was aglow in light pink. For Last, there was a key-tar shaped medallion, which had also started to glow a specific colour—this time, in a light yellow—as its actual owner approached the item cautiously. All three animals snatched the medallions and placed them somewhere on their personal effects—Ovi on his swallow-tail jacket like a pin, Amy on her head band on the same spot her 'Moody' piece occupied on the other side, and Tails on his flight goggles that he fished out of his plane before they left with Gondor earlier.

Ops smirked once again, before starting the training without warning.

* * *

Cherry waited at the tree that the Underground was going to meet up, having finished her packing much earlier. Her heart was heavy with the idea that she would leave her home behind, without telling her only living relative a word of her sudden disappearance. But the young green Seedrian felt that she had to find her brother, and to bring him home in the calmest way possible without sending anyone to die. She didn't move as she heard the sound of two tails rotating in the air before stopping, looking only when Tails had asked her if she was truly alright with this.

"Yes…" Cherry started sadly. "I'm okay with this. I want to help find Clark and make him stop from hurting other people like he did with Ovi." Her sadness crumbled away to allow the fierce determination to grow as she continued. "There's no way I'm backing out now."


	14. Chapter 13

It's Harmony (I Guess…)

* * *

_Location Unknown…_

Over a desolate wasteland; streaks of blue, purple and green shot throughout the grey landscape, just before the roar of a beast blasted behind the said strip of colour before it. The owner of the sound was a mighty wyvern-like creature, dark green in colour and continuously hovering in the air as it chased its prey into an abandoned castle. There, the monster had decided to wait a bit for more potential snacks to have.

As it did just that, the streak stopped completely, revealing the forms of Nickolas, Elizabeth, and Edward out of breath and tired from the run. They attempted to flop to the ground when a nearly silent growl came from behind them. The Triplets quickly turned to see a gigantic, two-headed dog right behind them; it's almost coppery fur seemed to shimmer like caked blood in the darkness of the castle. In response to finding new food to have, the two-headed beast lifted its fore legs—revealing a set of two tails caught underneath the left paw hidden in the shadows…

_Not too long before…_

It was astounding to find the now reunited Sonic Underground talking about things that were happening to them right now, especially since one of the tests for the Children of the Winds was done in a forest similar to where the warm-coloured trio were walking nearby. They had gleefully met up and conversed when both parties thought the other was in trouble, as one of the beings that was training the Underground around that time had disappeared as soon as he heard the noise of Ovi, Tails and Amy trying to figure out if the people talking earlier were friendly or not. The monk involved was quite glad that it didn't end up into a brawl like the first time Ovi had last met up with Sonic, and was quite taken aback seeing the young but beautiful Cherry along with the other three.

"And then, Ops came in lightning fast—almost as fast as you were for the first few minutes!" Tails eagerly said, retelling his brother bond and siblings the first training session with the former trainer. Although he still wasn't too sure about his place as Sonic's brother now that the blue hedgehog had found the green counterpart along with his sister, he couldn't help but feel comforted and glad that all three were paying attention to his story as he continued. "Ovi nearly lost his grip when she came in close, but I almost got hit with Amy's hammer after she went ahead and threw it away!"

"I'll admit that she did catch me off guard for a few seconds at first…" the rat said shyly, a bit embarrassed about having the first training session recounted in front of his –friend, was it?—in great detail. "But she was using a lot of speed over her strength, which by then it wasn't hard to figure out that she needed to be stalled." The rat sighed tiredly, stretching his back before resettling himself onto the log he was leaning on.

"_Wasn't_ hard?" Amy questioned her anger apparent in her voice. "It took at least **twelve** minutes for you to implement your plan while Tails and I were fighting her with our hands! You were slammed in the stomach!" She pointed at the rat in question, who flinched in embarrassment at the accusation.

"H-hey!" Tails quickly got in between the two before the fight could even begin. "I know you're both embarrassed about the story, but can we _please_ not act like Sonia and Manic?"

"What?" the two mentioned said defensively, with Sonic chuckling a bit at the entire situation.

Cherry looked at the scene in amusement as well, having moved herself away from the six to allow all of them to catch up on their adventures. "They're already acting like great friends." She said to Allegro, whom was curled up right beside the Dino-plant being for company.

"_I'm surprised that they haven't bothered with it sooner._" The young dragon 'said' to the green plant, her worry evident on her face as she gazed toward her owners and friends—of whom were now currently trying to get Ovi away from Manic after slyly commenting that the rat was similar to the green hedgehog while Tails was screaming 'bad analogy bad analogy' over and over—then at the dwindling fire that was in-between the circle of friends. "_I've always wanted to see the heroes' prophesized to one day come and save the kingdom from the tyranny it had fallen into ever since I heard my mother sing their praises, but when I finally was able to break free from the shell…_" Allegro was happy to have to known Sonic almost all of her post-egg life, but the amount of _potential_ that the young dragoness saw that was the Prince that she saw daily killed the green child's patience far faster than anyone else apart from the Seedrian beside her.

Said child brushed her hand onto the top of the dragon's skull, petting the now calm beast as she spoke. "You have to remember that you're still young, Allegro… Dragon or not, you're still a baby compared to the rest of us. Sonic may not even change to what is said about him in the oldest tales. The same goes for the others as well: you shouldn't expect them to start off as royal knights and sensible kings and queens. You'll have to wait until the time comes to see what they'll become." Cherry had to admit; while the Sonic Underground weren't what she had thought they would be (Even Dark Oak had figured all of them would at _least_ be in the elder teen years…), but the Seedrian was glad that they were around her age as well: even Ovi seemed to act a bit more childish when the former human found people whom were comfortable with what he considered 'oddities' about himself.

"_I guess you're right miss. Cherry…_" Allegro sighed, before going back to sleep as the Seedrian stopped petting her head.

Cherry looked toward the site where the Underground were, only to find that they were starting to pack up their things. Noticing that it was getting dark in the forest that they were in, Cherry decided to pick up the sleeping dragon herself before the blue prince came near. Sonic looked impassively at the tag-along friend the non-royal trio had brought with them.

"Well, I guess you're sticking with us for a bit." Nickolas said to the plant creature, taking the sleeping dragon from Cherry. "We need to get going before nightfall." He took the young girl's hand gently, before making their way over to the rest of the group for the last training session.

_Present day…_

As the Beast's attention was on the former blur of hedgehog's right in front of it, the two-headed dog failed to notice a fifth and sixth presence enter the room quietly behind it. As they attempted to strike the beast, a seventh presence along with an eighth attacked from above the beast. A loud shriek pierced the sky, causing the Wyvern from before to show up above the newcomers and fighters. It blasted the three hedgehogs in front of the two-headed dog, causing it to rear up and letting go of its much smaller prey underneath its paws.

All three of the hedgehogs dispersed from the attack, scorching the ground they were once standing on. "Alright, it's time to attack!" Sonic yelled to his siblings and friends, causing the medallions to transform into instruments similar to the shape of the jewelry in the first place.

"I still can't believe that you guys have your own instruments." Sonia gleefully said as Sonic's own friends turned their medallions into the instruments as well. Her medallion changed into a greyish-pink synthesizing keyboard, perfect for the now on-the-go band of animals. Her fingers danced along the keys, the machine responding to her touch as smoothly as Windlemire's own once had.

"Honestly, I'm still as surprised as you are, Sonia." Ovi replied, a sky-blue bass appearing in his hands in a similar fashion. Strumming his fingers over the low-tone cords of the instrument, he almost didn't notice the bolt of electricity that came out of the neck of the guitar.

"What was THAT?" The purple hedgehog yelled, alerting the rather large beast in front of them. The two-headed dog attempted to strike, when it was immediately shot by two bolts of lightning: one blue, the other orange. Sonia had quickly recognized where the sudden lightning storm came from, and proceeded to slam her keyboard in a desperate attempt to pitch in.

The Dog roared as another blast of energy was sent directly onto its face, making the beast drop the two-tailed creature that was trapped within its grasp. Tails fell to the floor butt first, having no time to react before the almost-Cerberus dropped the poor pup to the ground. Recovering from the shock, he almost didn't have time to get out of the way when the gigantic beast nearly stomped onto him, having to roll away as the large paw collided with the ground. Immediately, the two-tailed fox activated his own medallion, changing into a light-blue key-tar that fitted nicely into his arms. He didn't bother with staring in awe of the transformation, and instead tried to use the key-tar as a weapon like Sonic and Ovi were. Instead of the lightning that the others saw, Tails' own key-tar blasted a yellow line toward the almost-Cerberus' eye. Sonia was brought out of stupor when she saw Tails get up again, and slammed her own hands quickly onto the keys of her own keyboard.

Amy attempted to round her hammer against the two-headed beast, when the sound of a drum beat and the sudden shaking of the ground; followed by rather large, oddly saturated roots popping out of the ground and wrapping around the two-headed dog. Some of the rock not affected by the roots shot straight upward, attempting to attack the wyvern that just before was seemingly contemplating whether or not to strike the wayward teens. The wyvern steered away from the wayward earthen spikes, while the large dog jumped away from the erupting ground covered in roots. The rest of the Underground were shocked out of their stupor by the sudden shaking of the ground, causing the weak attacks to go everywhere. One of the wayward shots from the main four nearly sliced one of the wyvern's wings, causing the once docile beast to attack the now dysfunctional group immediately.

Sonic pulled himself off of the ground, none the worse for wear, and attempted to lay out some choice words onto his younger brother for not warning them. "You nearly killed us with that stunt!" he hollered to the green hedgehog, barely noticing his body turning grey once again…though unlike the last time he nearly blew his fuse, the blue prince noticed a faint tiredness throughout his body, which was forgotten when the magical instruments suddenly turned back into the medallions they started out with. The group then nearly got burned by the wyvern before they managed to disperse.

The two-headed beast, now upright, worked with the wyvern to destroy the drawbridge of the castle, trapping the Sonic Underground inside the castle.

/_/

_Meanwhile…_

Lord Sypress was fuming. No, the metal tyrant was absolutely livid.

The lord of Harrion City looked at the main screen of the darkened room, furiously not bothering to look at the current failures he didn't wish to call 'bounty hunters'. Sleet, Dingo, and Hunter were covered in grass stains, cuts and whatever else they found rolling around in the ground (Sypress himself didn't wish to imagine what they had that was brown on their clothing). The group of Harrion's Protectors were around the area that the bounty hunters last sent a message to, with only the lord and Aperis itself on one end of the table and Sleet hiding behind Dingo and Hunter on the other. Lord Sypress turned back toward the hunters, his gaze almost giving the failed trio a heart attack.

"It-It's not what you think!" Hunter said quickly, bringing his dirt covered gloves in self defense. "If it weren't for that damn rat figuring out where we were-"

"IT MATTERS NOT!" The Lord shrieked back, causing the trio to sink deeper into themselves in fear. "You destroyed a _Commander ship_ in a failed attempt to **re**capture the hedgehogs! Those ships are expensive to build, and you were defeated by plants!" Sypress continued, checking off each failure the bounty trio made when they went after the Underground.

"W-wait boss!" Sleet stuttered, quickly pulling out a CD to give to the moth robot. "We managed to recover this before the ship crashed… I think this might help with the investigation." The robot in question jumped over the table in between the Lord and the hunters, carefully grabbing the delicate storage unit and sliding it into where the main thorax would be and inserting it into the disc drive. Analyzing the data, Aperis started to speak.

"IT SEEMS THAT CHILDREN OF THE WINDS ARE BEING TRAINED BY THE RESISTANCE." The moth robot said expression unchanged as it turned to its lord. "THERE ARE OTHER CHILDREN ALONG WITH THE CHILDREN OF THE WINDS, BUT IT SEEMS THAT I DO NOT HAVE ANY OF THEIR FACES WITHIN MY DATABASE."

"You may want to send that CD data to the rest of the Generals, Aperis." A male voice broke through the silence surrounding the rhetorical message, making all but the moth robot to turn to the location of the voice. There, right behind the blank large screen, was a deathly black figure similar to Cherry in shape, though the Seedrian himself was a tiny bit taller than the green-coloured dino-plant. Unlike his dried, brown almost black leaf hair, his body was a healthy white colour. He wore black gardening boots, and a shirt collar that was as darkly coloured as his leaf head. His horns were dead oak/cherry cross, and his eyes were a blue muted with grey colours. "Otherwise, your lack of data is going to hinder us all." The plant dinosaur cheekily said, sliding towards the rest of the hanging generals and lord himself.

Aperis turned toward her lord, who gave the moth robot permission to send files to the other generals not present with the group. "I SHALL DO AS YOU PLEASE… GENERAL CLARK." The robot finally said, before it walked toward where the Seedrian General was last standing.

Clark came up toward the tin tyrant of Harrion City, and bowed slightly in jest at his commanding officer. "I'm here for service, as requested." Clark said, his smirk never fading as he wrote off his report. "It seems that the Resistance happened to realize where I put the mind warp device…As one of my little demons has been removed out of a kid that you asked me to lock up."

"Which person is this?" Sypress had to ask, as his memory wasn't as perfect as it once was. Managing a city full of humans and animayans was difficult, particularly since having to 'tame' some of his more 'violent' rioters.

"Let's take a look at the CD Sleet so kindly gave to Aperis." Clark turned toward the big screen where the brown moth robot was, whom had just finished attaching itself to the video ports when the screen turned on, showcasing the now escaped Underground training with Gondor of the Resistance.

The mood within the room seemed to get colder as Sypress watched the screen, the three bounty hunters now shivering and hugging one another in agony and fear of the Tin Tyrant. The only flesh and blood Clark not cowering at the now disjointed silence in the room, too interested in pointing out the very being that the dead-looking Seedrian knew had lost his precious parasite.

"Ah-ha! _There_'s my little parasite carrier!" Clark triumphantly said as the image rolled to an orange furred rat, which Aperis quickly paused on when the Seedrian made movement. Recognizing that the person in the image was important to the general, Aperis accessed its database on the information regarding the character on the screen.

"ORGVILLE MAURICE KINTOBOR, SON OF THE FORMER LEFTENANT OF QUEEN ALEENA HERSELF—HAROLD KINTOBOR." The moth robot listed from the little known facts on the now missing child. "IT SEEMS THAT MY DATA FILES ARE CORRUPTED BY AN OUTSIDE FORCE—"

"Oh, I caught the little _mouse_ just before I came in here." Clark said chillingly, pointing toward the quivering trio on the other side of the room as he continued. "These three helped make sure that he couldn't escape from his confinement on his own. I'm ready to prepare for interrogation if you wish for it." The Seedrian bowed before quickly leaving, knowing the answer about to come out of his lord's mouth.

\\_\

"So, has anyone got any ideas right now?" Sonic quickly asked, having just managed to get Ovi to cooperate in getting the much slower rat to safety with the others in the highest point of the castle the Underground was now trapped in. As he talked to everyone about their newest problem, the Wyvern and the two-headed Dog-Beast forced them inside the castle. The rest of the Underground were huddled up toward a wall against the castle itself, having nowhere else to get away from the two beasts.

"Well, we could have been able to do _something_ about those beasts, if _someone_ hadn't ended up trying to attack us!" Sonia started, looking at her young brother in anger. Unlike her older brother, her purple hedgehog had not turned grey like Nickolas. The look on Manic's face, on the other hand, was not something to continue blaming the poor guy about what happened earlier.

"Hold on." Ovi quickly said, snapping the attention of the royal triplets out of their fight. "Was it just me, or did that Wyvern try to high-tail itself out when Manic's drums created the 'Ground Spikes'?" He needed them to get talking on another conversation right _now_, as the current state of affairs wasn't helping anyone out in solving the problem.

"And didn't the Cerberus thing move out of the way when Cherry tried to rope it down?" Tails asked as well, remembering how the dog reacted to the roots about to strangle it earlier.

'_We should find a way to use both abilities to strike the two monsters at the same time with those weaknesses in mind._' Allegro suggested over the groups minds, startling the Royal Triplets a bit.

"Then we should figure out a way to make them align correctly!" Amy said happily, getting ready to charge once again into battle when Cherry stops her by grabbing the pink hedgehog's arm quickly.

"The plan won't work, if none of us are willing to apologize to one another." The green Seedrian turned towards the Royal Triplets, only Edward looking guilty at the accusation, with Nickolas and Elisabeth looking gobsmacked at their newest recruit before she continued. "Your medallion's power can barely work if none of you are willing to work together." She explained to both Sonic and Sonia, whom had finally recognized what their newest member was talking about—and turned toward their youngest to apologize.

As they did that, the Medallions on each of the Underground started to glow all of their colours, returning to the instruments that each of them had. Amy's own hammer returned to the forefront, but was now a small yellow microphone with a red handle with white kiddy wings on the side of the handles. Pressing the pink button where the wings connect to the microphone orb, the item changed from a hand mic to the Piko-Piko Hammer that she had before, and readied her hammer for a plan.

"Alright… let's start with getting Orthus and the Wyvern back together, alright?" Ovi started, having gotten up himself when a large blast of air came from behind both the orange rat and the pink hedgehog. Wasting no time; Sonic, Sonia and Ovi readied their instrumental weapons to attack the Wyvern, barely noticing the two-headed dog having dug out most of the castle from under the Underground.

Quickly, the green prince started beating on his drums, causing the castle walls to crumble and form into pointed precipice—hoping to attack the Wyvern quickly in the meantime while this siblings and the former police trainee were distracting the flying beast. Cherry had quickly activated her powers as well, directing the roots that spawned up the bladed precipice that had spawned when the green thief had slammed on the drums from his heart. The roots strangled onto the two-headed dog, making it freak when it realized that it couldn't get away due to the amount of uplifted dirt around the castle. In a last ditch effort to get itself detangled from the growing roots, one of the two heads quickly tossed one of the earthly blades into the air to hopefully smash the ever clinging vines off of its back. However, the Wyvern partner flew into the path of the bladed rock, the tip of the rock crushing its chest and killing the flying beast in a single blow. The corpse of the Wyvern fell on top of the two-headed beast, killing it as well.

The corpses of the two beasts disappeared slowly as the Underground celebrated their triumph over the mission. Too busy enjoying their victory over the training exercise, not even Ovi noticed the crumbling castle around them due to the wreckage caused by Manic, Cherry, and the two-headed dog's tampering earlier. All eight of the underground had their cheers turned into screams as they started falling quickly into the—

A bright flash of light quickly saves the group from their impending doom, reminding everyone involved that it was a simple, but intense, training exercise.

"You've passed!" the husky monk greeted to the Underground, happy to see the group having succeeded after what happened the first time the Royal Triplets appeared the first time. "It seems all of you are ready for the next step in your training today—"

"Rickard!" one of the cloaked monks called the husky from the doorway, making the Underground's teacher to be distracted by the sudden arrival.

"I'm sorry, I'll keep this short. You must contact the other half of your medallions on your own. I have something to see." Rickard quickly said, before realizing that he was forgetting something. "Are the youngest prince and the dragoness feeling a bit better about what they have now they know?" He quickly asked both Manic and Allegro, whom had nodded in satisfaction at the question. The husky monk quickly put his hood back on before leaving the Underground plus Cherry to their own devices.

"How _are_ we going to access 'the other half of our souls'?" Sonia asked, having sat down on her bed to rest a bit.

"I…Can't really say." Sonic said, concentrating on his medallion a bit more. "…I'm starting to notice something about myself, now that Rickard said that."

"What about yourself that you've noticed?" Ovi asked, having realized that he had been feeling _empty_ since the removal of the parasite from his body.

"Something's…missing from me, and I know that I wasn't given any parasite to keep me quiet." For the past few days, Ovi had explained that he had been feeling…out of sorts, since the removal of the parasite from his body had been removed: almost having Dissociative Identity Disorder and flip-flopping between moods on certain days. Nobody within the Underground had expected that from Ovi, not even the former human himself, since all seven had gotten back together the last three weeks.

"So, I'm not the only one going insane?" Manic asked, having a similar emptiness inside his heart.

"Oh… I guess that since we're all feeling it," Amy stated, having taken off her microphone medallion to look at it. "It means that it's supposed to be—"

Before the hedgehog girl could finish, a small pink glow came out of the medallion, changing its shape to a humanoid like figure in the palm of her hand. Her gasp was echoed around the room as similar reactions from the rest (save for Cherry and Allegro, whom both had no medallions to consider) had their own little Sprites, each one having details that the person who owned them had. But before the Underground could speak to each of the 'Sprites', Rickard came back through the curtain.

"I'm sorry my children, but it seems Sypress has taken one of the Resistance's own." He started, giving the Underground the paper showcasing today's headlines. Due to the lack of concentration, the sprites returned to the medallions they once were, and returned themselves back to their original positions. Nickolas quickly took the paper, catching his newfound robes (Their original clothes having been sent to be washed carefully) on the edge of the paper. On the front page was a rather large image, showcasing two Orbinauts trapping a small, hippie-dressed mouse in hand-cuffs. The mouse's fur colour was a natural brown, his blue eyes-covered by small pink shades—were turned away from the camera itself, hoping to cover his face in the drooping long fur over his face.

The original four quickly recognized the person in the picture. "Trevor's been thrown in jail?" Tails was the first to ask, worried that the mouse that encouraged his tinkering abilities would be next in line for becoming a robot.

"We've got to go save him!" Sonic quickly stated, with the rest of the group (Sonia and Manic having learned that it wasn't wise to cross their older brother in decisions) quickly agreeing and starting to pack up when the monk tried to interrupt them.

"Wait! You're training isn't complete yet!" the monk attempted, worried about their safety.

"Sorry Rickard, we need to help Trevor." Amy stated, having pulled up a briefcase to put the boy's clothing away.

"Besides, all of us feel we need to go and explore… before any of us start killing each other." Manic added, putting away the deactivated Tool into Tails' own bag.

"…Then I guess I have no choice." Rickard said, putting the hood down off his head to address the now fully packed team. "I shall help you all in getting to your destination, as well as giving you my last possession before coming to live in the monastery." His hands softly glowed as he attempted to teleport the group away from the monastery and back into Harrion City.

/_\

_Harrion City Outskirts…_

A set of purple cloaked figures watched as a bright streak of light went straight toward the other side of the city, dimming once it landed on the ground. Each cloaked figure turned toward one another, with the largest starting to speak.

"This is pretty bad for a start, Delphi." The tallest cloaked figure stated, worried about the outcome in his eyes at the Underground's early return.

"It will take some time for them to truly develop the way they were meant to, Greg." The one known as 'Delphi' explained, adjusting his stance over his hidden cane.

"But he's right, old man. It's hard to see their future if they're starting out this early." A female voice stated, turning towards the oldest in a childish glee. "But who's to say that _they_ would want to grow up just yet? I know that none of the Royal Triplets want to be King or Queen. Even _Sonia_ doesn't see herself as anyone taking the position in her life."

"Mary, they will grow in time. You'll have to just wait and see." Delphi stated, before returning to his home in the cold mountains.

\\_/

At the more desolate part of town, where the people dump their trash and unwanted parts all over-the Underground landed right next to a large, rather desolate vehicle from their traveling light. When they could pick themselves off of the ground, they stared at the egg-shaped van in front of them, having looks of discomfort and uncertainty at the run-down machine. The paint on the base was a sickly cream, with orange rims over the wheels. The front end and the top of the vehicle were covered by a bubble-shaped plastic window, which was also leaking with glue and dread.

When the group opened the side door to the van, it opened up to a nicely comfortable room, outfitted in beautiful shades of colours. The way to the top of the van was a purple pole, which leads from an indent within the floor of the car itself. To the right end of the van, there was a small seating area nearby a kitchen area. At the other end of the van, was the actual part of the van for transportation, with three seats lined up within two rows for the main drivers.

"This…Is different than what the outside set up." Sonia said, breaking the mind-boggled silence that nestled onto the group.

"Yeah… I was expecting something worse." Manic agreed, an odd feeling coming through his mind as the rest agreed equally. The green hedgehog's mind interpreted the feeling as a happy ending to a horror game, though he had no clue as to what that feeling was.

Placing their bags all over the van, the Sonic Underground went out to figure out a plan in getting into and out of the base with Trevor in tow.

"I must ask what we plan on doing to save this 'Trevor' person?" the Seedrian girl asked, having just stepped off of the van when she realized that there was no plan to begin with.

"I was thinking that I should run around and divert most of the 'bot's attention." Sonic started, having heard Cherry's question before anyone else.

Kintobor quickly shook his head in disapproval. "Too risky, Sypress might know that all of us are still live after our last escapade with those bounty hunters."

Before anyone else can input other ideas, Manic interjected quickly. "Why don't we use the Mouse Patrol route?" when he got blank stares instead of agreement, the green hedgehog blushed before quickly explaining. "The Mouse Patrol was one of the first things my thieving friends learned as an important survival tactic; never steal anything from those who had nothing to give, only from those who had everything but were unwilling to share. We usually sent kids to places like the stores that over-price everything, but the final challenge to graduation was always getting into Sypress' base without being noticed."

The thief prince quickly went toward the closest sewer grate that was nearby, irking Sonia and Ovi as he continued. "One of the best ways I know is through the sewers, so we best start making a plan while we go on through." As soon as he said that, Edward quickly jumped into the sewer entrance, followed quickly by his elder brother and the adopted two-tailed fox. Amy and Allegro followed suit, and then Cherry quickly fell in behind the rest of the group, leaving Sonia and Ovi behind.

"…Can there be another option?" Elizabeth quickly asked herself, her pleas on deaf ears as she found herself being lifted onto the former human's arms. The two jumped into the sewer entrance just before a buzzbomber went over the upturned entrance, passing by it as it sent a message to home base.

/-\

"So, how would you propose this deal to the people in Harrion City?" a rather slender mink asked the Robotics doctor in front of him, pretending to look disinterested as he scanned the area around him. The mink himself was a rare blonde colour, with a natural shade of brown eyes. His light yellow fur was covered in an expensive brown jacket, signifying the rich attitude protruding from him. While the much fancier mink wasn't sure about the new compatriot the 'good' doctor in front of him had gained, the mink was sure that the elder man had a good explanation about where he got the dishevelled child from. After ten years of seeing his own father talk business with the eccentric man-child before taking the reins from his disgraced hands, the yellow mink knew better than to disagree with the human in front of him.

Dr. Eggman smiled at that question, making the younger animayan shudder in response. "Well, my good friend Bartleby, we have a _lot_ to discuss about." The eccentric tinker started, alerting the robotic guards in the room to attention. As the robots were brought to attention, a metal door opened to reveal an elderly dog woman standing outside of the doorway with a blank expression on her face. Her dress was similar to Sonia's old dress, though much mature looking than the fifteen year old once had. Her brown coat was fading to a grey colour, though that wasn't Bartleby's thoughts trailed towards. Instead, what the pampered mink's thoughts went towards was the outlandish, out-of-place collar around her neck. The colour of the collar matched that of the aging dog's fur, though the bulkiness of the collar itself kept Bartleby from missing it completely.

"What did you do to Lady Windlemire?" The young aristocrat couldn't help but ask, standing up as soon as he recognized the figure that came into the door. The yellow mink couldn't believe what he was seeing: his father's good friend, a criminal? "What was she charged with?" the aristocrat quickly changed his stance, though his blue eyes betrayed his shock and anger over a former member of his family being a slave to the madmen running the country.

"I really didn't do anything to her." The 'Good' doctor started, waving a gloved hand nonchalantly toward his new employer. "She did it to herself, hoarding the 'Missing Amethyst' of Queen Aleena away from Lord Sypress." It was obvious to Bartleby that the words Dr. Eggman were saying were not his own, as he once thought of the former Windlemire as 'a close second' to his genius. "In truth, I never actually foresaw the moment where they put the Chaos Collar on her." The doctor relaxed considerably as soon as he said that, making the mink in front of the elder man relax as well.

"Well, I do hope the Lord will soon hope to see pity on her." The young mink couldn't help but add, not noticing the banging going on around the back of his head.

Dr. Eggman however, could notice. "It seems we have something crawling in the vents. We'll have to talk about our 'Resisting' problems later."

000

"That was close!" Nickolas couldn't help but say, after the whole kerfuffle earlier with Manic and Sonia in the vents. While the Underground _had_ split up to rescue Trevor/figure a way out of Sypress' fortress before anybody for the Lord noticed, they couldn't stick around the air vents/rooms they were in for too long.

"I couldn't have said it better myself." Manic said-his smile beaming as he and Trevor moved out of the vent after Sonic. Tails was the last to get out, as they didn't want to bring more than three people in, and four people out. As such, Ovi, Sonia, and Amy willingly stayed away from the vents to find how to get out of the fortress: Allegro was forced to join them when her claws made too much noise in the vents. The green thief held onto a key-like device in his fanny-pack, slightly poking out of the waist pocket.

"We'll have to use one of the shuttles in the loading bay." Trevor said, still a bit lucid from the interrogation attempts that Clark put him in. "It's the only way out with a crowd this large—"

"Did anyone see my sister?" Ovi had to ask the four when they came out. "I would like to know if she's safe!" the former human couldn't help but shake Trevor a bit was he said that.

"Hope's fine." Sonic quickly said, grabbing Ovi's sleeve before Trevor got himself sick. "She's with Dr. Eggman, though."

The orange rat carefully put down the hippie rodent as the blue prince said that, face blank as he pondered on what to do. "Okay." He said after a few minutes. "We need to get out of here before they find us." Orgville said, leaving with Trevor leading toward the loading bay. Both Amy and Sonia took a quick look at Ovi's retreating back, before looking grimly at each other. Everyone else took the chance to follow behind.

010

Trevor guided the Underground toward the shuttles of the loading bay; the group being quicker once they heard of the Sun-Strike Army's planned attack on the Oracle of Delphius. He decided that since the Underground were too large to actually escape, that they would need a distraction in order to successfully escape to the cold north of Holoska. The hippie mouse used another of the shuttles to distract the other robots, allowing the Underground to easily escape toward where the Oracle was currently living at.

"You know, this ship isn't so bad." Tails said to the rest of the group as they left the boundary of Harrion City, piloting the ship toward the snowy cave where the Oracle lived.

"Ovi, I think it's time we had a talk." Amy started, grabbing the attention of everyone on board: Nickolas had stretched out on one of the chairs, while Sonia and Allegro were right beside him. Ovi was looking outside one of the reinforced windows, face blank before hearing Amy's call.

"About what?" the half-human couldn't help but ask, the danger sneaking up behind them as the pink hedgehog continued.

"How you nearly—" The poor girl couldn't get a chance to finish, as the screens came on in front of the two tailed fox. Miles screamed as they showed the distinctive face of Dr. Eggman's own two lackies: Andrew and Evangeline.

"Did you seriously think that you could leave so easily?" Andrew asked gleefully, inputting something into the computer while his sister continued for him.

"How about you guys cook for us? I'm sure my little chao would like that!" Evangeline held up a normal dark-type chao, whom had snickered at them before the screen shifted to a digital jellyfish like entity. It had purple all over its digitized body and a black-hole looking mouth that didn't seem to end when they looked at the being. When it disappeared, the countdown for the self-destruction began.

"We need to go!" Cherry said; trying to slam her body into the door they had entered the shuttle, only to find that even the shambling jet door wouldn't give way anymore.

"Hold on, I have this." Manic quickly said, making the dino-plant step aside with the key from his fanny-pack in hand. Holding up the key to the slot, the door automatically opened, allowing the Underground to get out to a high drop as the ship was set to explode.

The Sonic Underground managed to get off of the jet before it exploded in the air, nearly incinerating them as they fell to the ground. Miles, Allegro, and Cherry were the first to hit the ground safely, having floated down with whatever they could use from their bodies. Amy and Sonia hit the icy snow back first, with Edward falling on top of them not long after.

"Wait, what happened to Sonic and Ovi?" Tails quickly asked, before hearing some muffled screams from behind Sonia, Amy and Manic. The Underground got up and found two pairs of furred legs—one blue and the other orange—wiggle about upside in the snow. The others couldn't help but laugh as Nickolas' feet sunk into the snow, before helping the two out of their sink holes.

020

A blast of heat came from the hole in the ground, the little light within the hole showed gems and minerals of every colour within. While the hole itself seemed large and impossible to defend from, The sonic Underground went into the unnaturally warm caverns, hoping to set up a line of defense for the Oracle of Delphius. A few times they gotten themselves lost, having to backtrack towards a riverbank under a wooden and rickety bridge.

"We _have_ to be getting close enough to the Oracle's place **now**!" the blue prince couldn't help but say, having been tired and grumpy after the fifth misdirection the Sonic Underground had fallen for.

"Maybe you should leave for the entrance!" Sonia started, butting heads with her brother once again.

"Guys, maybe we should…" Tails didn't get to finish, as the badnicks had already arrived where the Underground last entered, with the buzzbombers shooting the old bridge's supports. Landing on the opposite cliff-face, Sonic tried to climb back up when an auditable _snap_ broke what little rope the bridge had, causing the Underground to fall into the river below. Luckily, no one was hurt; But Ovi had to drag Nickolas to the shore they noticed before walking onto the bridge.

"Damn, we really need to stop fighting all the dang time…" he stated, glaring at both Nickolas and Elizabeth as he said that. "We're never going to get anywhere with that—" the former human stopped as he felt a warm presence on his back. Turning toward a bright royal purple light, the Sonic Underground saw a purple quilled hedgehog adorned in a white dress and golden jewelry, her jade green eyes full of merit and love for the Royal Triplets behind the changeling.

"You all have done well to make it this far, my children." The hologram started her voice as soft as silk. "The Oracle of Delphius needs all of your help, not just one of you at a time. You all must be willing to work together, and to treat one-another as if you were all family." As that was stated, the purple hedgehog's peach-coloured hand waved about, showcasing the Oracle with another person tutoring under him. Both tapirs were in a library of some sorts. "I'm sure you all know this, but if the Oracle of Delphius falls, the Resistance may have lost one of their greatest allies. Be strong for one another, my dears," and with that proclamation her form started to disappear from the Underground's sights "-And remember that you are much stronger together. I love you all."

And with that, should-be Queen of the Animayans disappeared from their sights, rekindling the Underground's hopes and bringing out their instruments (but not before Sonic and Sonia apologized, of course) for the battle with the badnicks ahead. Manic once again shook the ground to create precipice blades from below, destroying whatever badnick managed to get over to the other side of the caves, with Cherry as sight (as she found that in a cave located in one of the two coldest regions of the planet, there was nothing but moss to manipulate with her powers, which she found useful for a sight-beyond-sight). Sonia got to work diverting the badnicks not harmed by Manic and Cherry's tag-team using the mist out of her piano, while both Sonic and Ovi worked with Tails and Amy to swat whatever robot couldn't find its way. Allegro, fearing that her sound breath would shake up the place much more than what Manic was doing on his drums, simply resorted to head butting whatever motorized machine was left untouched by either Manic or Sonic.

When there were no more sounds of robots, even the orders of whatever commanders having long since silenced, was the exact moment the Oracle of Delphius showed himself to the aspiring group of individuals. He explained what they needed to do, where they need to go, and then sent them off toward the city where their van was waiting. When the Sonic Underground was long gone, a bright light came right beside the Oracle outside the cave he lived in. The guests were both hedgehogs: one being the hedgehog woman the Underground saw earlier and another covered in steel armour from head to toe. The helmet for the armour was removed, showcasing a messy greenish-blue quilled head and amber eyes underneath a pleasant, if cheeky smile.

"Looks like they're learning, Delphi." The male stated- his voice an octave lower than either Sonic's or Manic's. "Though, I would have told them you had everything covered."

"And making sure that they could split up later, Stanley?" the queen asked, making the armour-wearing hedgehog flinch. The hedgehog recollected himself, and smirk an evil smile.

"I thought we agreed to call me 'Skylocke', my shining star." He said, bringing an armoured arm over her shoulder, bringing her into a half-hug.

"Do not worry, Aleena my dear." The Oracle said, startling the couple out of their stupor. "They wouldn't have split that easily, not with all of them wanting more out of their life."

Skylocke couldn't help but smile at that, and both he and Aleena disappeared into the blowing blizzard, leaving the Oracle to await for the next time the Sonic Underground arrive.


	15. Chapter 14

_**AN: this was getting ridiculous in how long I was making it, I had to split this chapter into two because I was losing so much steam on it. Think of this bit as the intermission between the third and the fourth episodes of Sonic Underground, because they never showed HOW the gang got back to Robotropolis/Harrion City in the show itself.**_

* * *

999

It took at least several days (and a month, if you actually believed Sonic afterwards) when the Sonic Underground finally returned back toward Harrion City's outskirts, and hoped to find the location of the main Resistance base for joining the rebel group. They were more cautious about returning back to the streets—as they now were wanted for a large sum of money by Sypress himself; the newly formed rock band had no choice but to find out where the Resistance's Harrion branch. Luckily for them, Trevor had decided to wait for them right beside the van Rickard had given them.

The natural mouse guided the Sonic Underground to the main Resistance headquarters, chatting with the original four about their life since they last met. Manic and Sonia were at the front of the vehicle, with the purple princess wearing red tights and light blue designer boots on her legs-and a beautiful simplistic blue sleeveless dress with a gold high-belt holding it in place. Similarly, the rest of the Underground had changed into similar versions of their previous outfits before living in the monastery. Tails' shirt was traded for a simplistic t-shirt muddled with oil stains and metal lubricant. Amy traded her own sweater and jeans for a simple red dress to match her boots and headband. Sonic, Ovi, Manic, and Cherry on the other hand opted to return back into their original attire that they had left the city in instead. Allegro sighed under Edward and Elizabeth, having placed herself in the two's laps while they listened to what Trevor had to say about the Resistance. Cherry herself was in between Sonic and Tails, though slightly away from the two so that she could join the conversation as well.

"I'm not sure if the higher ups are going to like the idea of any of the Children of the Winds looking for their parents." The mouse started after he told them the location of the gathering location in the city. "The main leaders don't want to find you guys long dead along with the King and Queen themselves."

"So, they don't want us dead then?" Sonia asked, agreeing with the Resistance leader's beliefs. However, not everyone agreed with her sentiments.

"They won't be able to find _either_ Skylocke or Aleena if all three of you aren't searching." Amy stated, causing the rest of the group to turn toward her. "In my downtime away from everyone, I decided to research on the whole 'myths' were surrounding the disappearing Royalty." the pink hedgehog strides toward her suitcase, opening it to search for the few books she found at her place while she continued speaking. "One of the truths that I found while looking for any information about the Soundbreaker Clan was that nobody could find Aleena or Skylocke without their children looking for them." Amy picked up a scrapbook containing all of the information that she collected before leaving Harrion City, some of the items found within falling out of the book as she opened it, the other members of the Underground plus Trevor gathered around her in curiosity. "At least, that's what I saw in one of the books I looked through in my spare time." Her colour changed from a greyish colour to a greyish-pink as soon as she finished speaking.

"Amy, you're colour's back a bit." Sonic said, catching everyone else's attention. Amy took a quick look at her body to find that her colour indeed brightened drastically. Trevor however was confused by what everyone had said.

"Wait, what are you guys talking about?" the normal-looking hippie mouse asked, causing the others to look at him in confusion.

"What, you don't see it?" Sonic asked, just as confused as Trevor was about it.

"No, in fact I have no clue what you guys are talking about." The brown mouse stated, before looking at Ovi quickly. "The only things that's changed for me is the other two hedgehogs that joined you, and Ovi's species." The former human huffed at that, turning away as Trevor concluded with "Other than that, I'm seeing your colours just fine. Should I be worried?"

Everyone just looked at one-another, and decided that it wasn't the best time to explain what they saw in Harrion City to him. "It's nothing, honestly." Amy stated, closing her scrapbook quickly.

They started the van afterwards, Trevor's inputs over where the Resistance base being the only thing penetrating the silence surrounding the van itself. It took at least a couple of hours for the Underground to find a decrepit bunker entrance; the top of the entrance was covered in trash, the entrance being hidden in a rundown part of town. The Underground parked the van just beyond the bunker itself, so as to not draw attention to the bunker at all. Trevor guided the rock band through the process of getting in, revealing the place to be an underground military shelter. The normal mouse continued onward through the many halls, zigzagging as precisely as he could while the ones tagging along struggled to keep up with him.

"This is a safety precaution I'm doing." Trevor stated, his glasses catching the glint of the lights in the halls. "Just to make sure that anything that's probably stuck on our clothing gets the wrong coordinates and fizzes out before we actually reach the entrance of the Base itself." He pointed toward the ceiling, which everyone noticed that it looked lower than the rest. "The signals from the tracking devices that we discovered can't penetrate more than five meters of ground before it doesn't work. Many of the hallways go deeper in case there are newer versions that can." Finally, the mouse decided that it was okay for them to continue onward, before finally stopping at a set of large metallic doors, with inputs on the right hand side.

"_This place reminds me of the caves that we visited once_." Allegro stated as Trevor went and inputted the commands to open the doors, making Ovi and Sonic look at her in fear and everybody else in confusion.

"Wait, you guys went _exploring_ once?" Tails asked, never having seen Nickolas or Ovi getting along when he first joined the group.

"…That was before the city got the best of us." Ovi stated, his tone indicating that the conversation was over. As soon as the doors opened, both Ovi and Sonic quickly rushed inside, stopping at a hand rail overlooking a large chasm. The rest of the group (save for Trevor, as he didn't hear what Allegro said a few minutes ago and was confused by Tails' comment) looked at the two opposites in shock before trying to go after them.

"Hold on. I want to show you guys this view!" Trevor stated, walking toward where the blue prince and the orange rat were before stating: "My friends, _this_ is the Underground Plaza!"

The large chasm took the Sonic Underground by surprise as it glowed in the natural light from the glass covering way above anyone's heads. The dirt and asphalt from above rested on Andesite walls, with dozens of quartz crystal chandeliers hang above catching the light to reflect in other directions as a muddled rainbow. Holes and doors throughout the chasm showcased the amount of activity the place got, with Resistance members from many shapes and sizes going about their day over the railings leading to said caves. In the middle of the chasm, where the light above reached the bottom, there was a large crop of plants—ranging from the pretty flowers to the useful vegetables for eating—covered the entire bottom of the chasm itself.

"This is… absolutely gorgeous!" the purple princess couldn't help but gasp out, her beliefs that the Resistance could only afford to live in the trash shattered at the great view.

"How did you manage to find this place?" Tails couldn't help but ask, his own curiosity showing through as he gazed outward.

Trevor nodded before continuing, "It's actually a part of the Wilderness' shielding reservoir, just beyond where the humans call 'Coquitlam'." As soon as everyone got to look at the normal rat, he held his chin onto his face as he continued. "I don't remember the exact specifics as to what went on or how we found it, I was only nine when my old man decided to make the Resistance with Charles and Harold-"

"Wait, Harold?" Ovi quickly asked. "Dr. Harold Kintobor? The person who helped engineer the Robotizer for medical treatment to amputees from the wars?"

"Why yeah. He's the one who pitched the idea to Charles and my dad." Trevor wasn't getting why Ovi seemed so pale at the near mention of this man. Why was Kintobor—Oh? "Wait, Dr. Kintobor's your _dad_?" the mouse couldn't help but ask, before changing the conversation when he noticed the once human flinch at that accusation. "Would that mean that Charles is—"

"Probably is, considering Uncle Chuck had a Doctorate in Surgery when he was younger." Nickolas quickly said, knowing that this was a distraction to get Ovi off of thinking about his lack of father figure for most of his life. "I can understand him working with Harold, as he is one of the best engineers on this planet." Then Sonic threw the question that lingered on his mind. "Why was your father contacted, though? I mean," Nickolas held up his hands when Trevor glared at the prince. "He's a good guy and all, but he's not much of a planner."

"That's only when I don't have much information about what's in front of me." A raspy voice said, causing the new recruits to look at an older greying mouse, with ruined jeans and a hippie necklace. His grey-blue eyes betrayed the anger he had boiled within, though his bearded grey muzzle never twitched downwards. A twig cane was in his left hand, waiting for the moment that one of the Children of the Winds spoke out of line. He was right next to an elder mink, which looked much fancier than anyone that ever managed to join the Resistance other than Sonia herself. He wore a nice, tailored black suit with similar pants, and a white undershirt completed with designer black shoes. Sonia gasped as she recognized the brown eyed, blonde-furred being in front of her.

"Mister MonClair!" the purple hedgehog started, causing the rest of the group to turn around to her in confused. "This is the father of my fiancé—"

"_Former_ fiancé, my dear." The Mink stated, causing the female triplet to look at the mink awkwardly.

"…Sir Albert MonClair." Elizabeth finished lamely, confused as to why he said that.

"I do apologize for stating that, _mon cherie_, but I was never a fan of your relationship with my childish son." He stated, moving through the group elegantly as he continued. "I was always against it, even when the fair Lady Windlemire said that it would help 'protect' you."

Before anyone could ask why the marriage was arranged anyway without his consent, a light blue hedgehog with a white mustache walked toward the Underground with a cheerful expression on his face. "I asked him to join the charade, so to speak." He replied, old quills curled as he went to the three hedgehogs for a quick hug. "It's nice to see my brother's children back in one place, once again." The elder hedgehog's jade eyes shone with merit as he hugged the triplets gently.

"Uncle Chuck!" Sonic eagerly said, embracing the hug to his fullest. Manic and Sonia, on the other hand, were unsure how to react to the situation as they never known the older hedgehog in their life. The uncle of the triplets pulled back after a few seconds, light green eyes shone with happiness and merit as Edward and Elizabeth rubbed their shoulders in uncertainty.

"It's alright, Sonia and Manic." Charles stated, putting his hands on both of their shoulders carefully. "If you want, you can go with Albert to see the main boardroom. We'll be right behind you." He stated quickly, before Nickolas himself dragged him off to talk about their week. Tails, Amy, and Cherry followed as MonClair guided them through the catacombs to the boardroom mentioned. Ovi and Allegro—along with Sonic and Charles-were the only two Underground members who stayed behind, the orange rat being a bit more tense than usual now that he knew his father was somewhere nearby. The young dragon on the other hand was much more content to wrap around the blue hedgehog's neck carefully, disinterested in what her owner or his friend—plus his uncle—had to say to one another.

The group walked carefully over the railings and natural ground of the hollowed fortress, mindful of the uncomfortable landing and the high drop toward it as they went toward the Resistance main boardroom. Sonic, Ovi and Allegro along with Charles trailed a few minutes after them, their talk having been put on hold when they remembered what they were doing. The halls were long and narrow, common for the catacombs like the one they were in. They all managed to get toward the tail end of the base, where the rocks were far too impenetrable or safe enough for proper housing other Resistance members. There was silence once again hanging around them as the Leaders and the Sonic Underground as Sir Albert stopped, showcasing a steel door, carefully hinged into the bed rock so that the entire thing didn't end up collapsing upon the people within the catacombs.

The fashionable mink opened the steel door to the conference room, which a large table was placed in the middle of the caved room, with chairs of all kinds surrounding the work space. The middle of the table was cut out, contained within was a projector that wasn't on at the time, and the Underground had no idea what would appear when it was turned on—or where it would appear, or what shape it would turn into. Never-the-less, the Underground automatically sat down around the table, with the Resistance Leaders plus Trevor seated on the other side, the side not close to the steel door at all. The meeting started without much incident, Cherry having a small conversation with the Resistance Leaders—along with Amy—about the number of plants that haven't grown inside the caverns. Hoping to help them out with their problem, the young green dinosaur-plant decided to stay with the Resistance, which left them to the moment that went south.

"Alright, we now know that all of you are still in the world of the living—" Trevor's father stopped when the door they entered swung open, revealing a rat similar looking to Ovi, only much older and the tips of his fur being far lighter than the Halfling. The light brown eyes went from Nickolas to Edward, completely stopping at the young rat—whom had turned his head when the elder male rat started to look at him for too long. He looked out of breath, as if he ran through a good chunk of the caverns to get to the boardroom in time. The rat straightened himself, moving away from his son just before starting to speak.

"I see that all six of you have managed to join our rag-tag group." He stated, scratching the whisker-like moustache as he sat in the farthest, unclaimed seat next to Charles. A hiss was heard from the now mad tiny dragon over Nickolas' shoulders, but he waved the threat away before speaking once again. "I would suggest to see how far you've come from your training in the mountains, but I have heard from the Oracle's daughter that you've skimped on it to go and 'save' Trevor. Have you not?" Harold glared at all of them, before stopping at his eldest - to find him unfazed by the glare.

"Trevor was more or less incapacitated with the amount of serums they put into him than he would like to admit, _sir_." The younger orange rat responded icily, startling the others from the man's tranquil fury.

"Unlike you, _he_ has learned to get out of those types of situations." The elder rat stated. The focus of the glare never left its mark.

Orgville, however, still was unfazed. "He's a _friend_ whom happened to be in _trouble_. Don't expect that since you've decided on coming back into _my life_, my own _safety_ is the most important thing to you."

Silence came after the remark, before Harold decided to say something else instead. "I'm _forbidding _any of you access to missions. You are to _stay_ unless something that we cannot handle comes up." The elder went silent after that, making the rest of the Underground besides Sonic and Ovi react negatively.

"…I guess that ends this meeting, then." Charles said, unsure about what to feel at the situation. The group got up; not noticing the looks they were being given from Trevor, Albert and Charles.

999

It took them a bit to return back to where they parked their van due to the odd layout of the catacombs, but they eventually were greeted with the starry night sky of the world outside. Without a moment's hesitation, the Sonic Underground quickly went to the Underground van quietly. Just as soon as they reached the van and were about to get in, a voice sounding suspiciously like Trevor's hollered for them to wait a few minutes. When Trevor and Cherry finally managed to get close, both stopped for a bit to pant quickly before talking.

"I…and Uncle Chuck…Managed to get this…for you guys. He thought…you might have wanted to start somewhere." The brown mouse gave them papers, which Ovi took immediately to look over.

"These are…" Ovi couldn't help but say after looking through the first few words printed, recognizing them from somewhere. Suddenly, his head hurt, and the orange half-rat had no choice but to hand the papers to Sonic, whom eagerly took both the papers and the crowd of curious onlookers as he read the documents.

"Wait. How would _this guy_ help us?" Sonic asked immediately, looking through the papers while Orgville sat down to relieve himself of the headache that suddenly came on.

"Right after Skylocke, Charles and Harold, he's the Captain of the Royal Guard and the next closest friend Aleena has got." The hippie mouse stated. "From what we intercepted, he's planning on meeting with Aleena and Skylocke in their 'usual location'. They never specified on _where_ this location is." Trevor shrugged.

"You shouldn't try _any_ part of the castle, around or in it." Cherry said, gaining the attention of the others. "I heard from the other Resistance members that the castle was given to Sypress' government, and it's too heavily guarded to search for clues lately." She then gave them a photo of a creature that would have given Ovi a headache had he not sat down for the previous one he was nursing.

"So… you want us to go find this man?" Sonia asked, a bit unsure about what to say.

"No." Manic stated, causing everyone to look at him oddly. "I think they want us to _follow _him to Aleena."


End file.
